


On the Seventh Day

by Love_all_the_fandoms



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Fallen Castiel, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sam Ships It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-28 08:51:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10082201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Love_all_the_fandoms/pseuds/Love_all_the_fandoms
Summary: Castiel has fallen, and is now entirely human. Dean tries to hide his feelings for his newly-human friend, but, much to his dismay, Human Castiel turns out to be much more perceptive than Angel Castiel.But, unfortunately, not perceptive enough to realize his own feelings, and so the dance continues. And Sam just can’t take it anymore.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Usually when I write a fic I’ll write a moment of happiness for the two main characters, then build a (usually dark and terrible) story around that. This time when I wrote the scene I started to build a story about Castiel’s fall and thought, no. Let Cas and Dean have their moment of happiness, with... well, I won’t say no strings, but less strings attached than usual.  
> Hope you guys enjoy it! Rating is just to be safe.  
> P.S. Contains no plot from any season, just a fallen Castiel, a bunker, and two very worried Winchesters.

**Day 1:**

**Sam**

Sam looked at the passenger side of the car, which contained a rumpled and exhausted former angel.

“Ok, Cas?” he asked gently. Cas stirred, but didn’t respond, apparently content to just stare despondently out the window at the passing scenery.

“Can you tell me about it?” Sam pressed, hoping to draw his friend out on what had happened since the brothers had lost track of him over a month ago.

Cas shrugged and continued to stare out the window. Sam waited, allowing the newly-human angel to gather his thoughts.

“Where’s Dean?” Cas asked eventually, and Sam smiled internally. Cas might have lost his divinity, but some things clearly hadn’t changed.

“At the bunker, he got back late last night,” Sam sighed, feeling another wave of exhaustion wash over him. Neither he nor Dean had really slept since Cas had disappeared. “I should’ve been back at the bunker too, but I got caught up. It was just dumb luck I saw you by the road.”

When Cas didn’t say anything further Sam kept talking, trying to draw the angel out of his silence. “In fact, if anyone should have found you, it should’ve been Dean. I don’t think there’s a road, hospital, diner, or motel within a thousand miles that he hasn’t searched.”

Cas winced, and Sam’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel. He’d tried to hold back the questions, to give his friend time to adjust to his change in circumstance, but it had been a long month. A long, difficult, _frightening_ month.

 “ _Why_ , Cas?” he finally burst out, unable to hold the words back any longer. “Why didn’t you want to be found?”

Cas was silent for such a long time Sam thought he’d fallen asleep. But then the former angel spoke.

“Dean…” he whispered.

“Yes?” Sam pressed, wondering if Castiel had _finally_ realized that he had feelings for his brother. He hoped so. The eternal Dean-and-Cas dance had worn thin for Sam years ago.

“He might… he might not want to be my friend anymore,” Cas said wretchedly.

“ _What?_ ” Sam spluttered, completely taken aback. “For the love of… _why?_ ”

“Because… you know…” Cas gestured at himself miserably. “I’m not… who I was. And I didn’t… want him to see me like this.”

Sam was flabbergasted. “Are you _serious_ , Cas? _That’s_ why you’ve been hiding from us?!” The hunter cursed under his breath, glanced at his passenger, and added some blasphemy to the curses. Eventually he ran out of suitably profane words, and turned to stare at his friend.

“Cas, whatever you do, _don’t_ tell Dean that’s the reason you didn’t come home. He’ll blame himself.”

Cas hunched his shoulders at Sam’s tone, but nodded. Sam continued to drive, grimly thinking that Dean wouldn’t care if Cas was a two-headed purple lizard alien, he was smitten and nothing would ever change that.

But… Sam looked at Cas’s miserable face and sighed. Cas didn’t know that. And Cas was new to this, to feelings. If he truly didn’t realize the reason he was so worried about seeing Dean again, then Sam owed it to him to be understanding, and patient. No matter how _infuriating_ it was.

Dean. Sam’s mind drifted to his brother, and he grinned in anticipation of his face when he walked through the door with Cas in tow. He’d tried to call, but Dean hadn’t answered, he rarely did these days. His brother rarely did anything much anymore, except obsessively track Cas across the country. And drink. And get on Sam’s nerves. And obsess some more.

Sam glanced at Cas again, and chuckled to himself. If Cas thought Dean wasn’t going to be pleased to see him, well, he was in for one hell of a shock.

 

**Dean**

Dean paced up and down in front of the giant map pinned to the wall, then stopped and circled one of the few areas he hadn’t searched yet. The radius he and Sam were searching was expanding every day, but the brothers were working under the assumption that Cas couldn’t have gotten far. After all, he had no money, and no means of getting money other than the kindness of strangers… and Dean knew very well that not all strangers were kind. It was part of the reason they searched so desperately.

At that thought he glanced longingly at the bottle of whiskey on the table, but managed to stop himself from reaching for it. He knew he needed to have a clear head if he was going to get out there again as soon as Sam got back.

The hunter scrubbed his hands tiredly across his face, and combed his fingers through his hair, grimacing at how greasy it felt. He knew he should rest, and eat, and have a shower, but he couldn't bring himself to waste even that much time. Who knew what was happening to Cas while he was in here, and not out there? He needed to keep looking. Which he would, as soon as his Brother. Got. The Hell. _Back!_

Just as he thought that, the door opened, and Dean sighed in relief.

“Where have you been, Sammy?” he growled, not turning around. “Every second counts, you know that. Quick, get over here and show me where you’ve been.”

“Maybe if you answered your phone once in a while,” Sam said grumpily. Dean snorted, and started reaching for a marker when a husky voice cut through the silence, saying the words Dean had ached for every second of every miserable day, and every sleepless night.

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean felt his heart stutter and stop, his chest constricting as if he’d fallen and all the wind had been knocked out of him. After taking a long moment to compose his face, he turned around.

Dean felt his whole world narrow to one thing, the former angel standing dejectedly at the bottom of the stairs. Vaguely he saw Sam grin, and wander off in the direction of the kitchen, but for once his brother’s presence wasn’t more than a faint blip on his radar.

Cas looked awful. His normally imperceptible stubble shadowed a face that was much leaner than the last time Dean had seen it, his hair was limp, greasy and slightly longer than usual, and the old, obviously stolen, clothes he was wearing were torn and stained. But one thing was the same. The eyes. Those piercing, cerulean eyes that had so captivated Dean, from the moment Castiel had first walked so arrogantly into his life.

As Cas started to shift uncomfortably under his stare, a look of almost-despair ghosting across his features, Dean came back to himself with a start.

“Cas!” he exclaimed, crossing the room in record time, grabbing his friend in a hug. It wasn’t the hug of one friend to another, but for once Dean didn’t care. He buried his face in Cas’s neck, his right hand clutching a fistful of his shirt at the back, pushing the former angel into him with almost bruising force, his left hand snaking up to cradle his neck.

After a moment Dean felt Cas’s arms come around him, trying to hug him back, shifting around, attempting to imitate the placement of Dean's hands. Dean smiled, and felt Cas finally relax into him. He flexed his fingers, just feeling the comforting warmth of the angel, (and Dean knew that, no matter what, he would always think of Cas as an angel), in his arms.

Eventually, reluctantly, he let go, holding Cas at arm’s length, taking in again the grime and general disarray of his friend. He desperately wanted to ask Cas where he'd been, what had happened, why he’d left, but something on his friend’s face stopped him.

“Let’s go find you a room, and you can get cleaned up, ok, Cas?” Dean said instead, trying to sound casual, as if the last month had never happened. Cas nodded, relaxing when Dean didn’t berate him, or ask awkward questions, and the hunter thought he saw tears standing in the former angel’s eyes before he turned and started towards the stairs down to the bedrooms.

Sam came out from wherever he’d been lurking, clearly out of line of sight, but just as clearly not out of earshot, and handed Cas a bag of clothes and sundries as they walked off towards the rooms. Dean started to follow, but suddenly felt the room spin around him, and, alarmed, felt himself wobble on his feet. He shakily made his way over to a chair and sank down into it, putting his head between his knees.

“Get a grip, dammit!” the hunter muttered to himself, embarrassed, even though neither Sam nor Cas had seen his moment of weakness.

After several minutes of just breathing, trying to get his racing heart back under control, Dean felt something inside him, something wound incredibly tightly, finally break. The tension of the last month, all the stress and worry, the fear and grief, drained away, leaving him feeling like he’d just woken up from a long illness. Cas was safe. Cas was safe, and back at the bunker. It was freaking honest-to-god (a god Dean no longer believed in) miracle.

But then a new, different kind of tension gripped Dean. He’d been so caught up in his worry for Cas that he hadn’t dared to think about what it would be like when he was back, and safe.

The hunter knew instinctively that now Cas was human he would soon figure out that Dean was in love with him... it was pretty damn obvious.… but not yet. Right now Cas was only just learning how to be human, and Dean didn’t want to influence him, or accidentally take advantage of his naivety. The hunter had no real hope that Cas would ever return his feelings, and he knew he’d never forgive himself if, in the process of teaching Cas how to be human, he somehow forced the angel to think he had to reciprocate his affection.

With that in mind, Dean decided he had to change the way he acted around the ex-angel, and fast. He could no longer stare at him from across the room, ‘accidentally’ touch his hand in passing, or any of the other myriad little things that practically screamed his feelings. At least, not until his friend was settled and comfortable enough in his human skin to make his own, uninfluenced, decisions. 

But that was a worry for another day. Right now all Dean needed to do was strap some steel to his spine, get out of the damn chair, and go check on his friend.

 

Dean knocked on the door, and after a scratchy ‘come in’ the hunter walked in, stopping when he saw Cas lying on top of the covers, his hair slightly damp, dressed in just a t-shirt and pajama pants. Dean caught his breath, overwhelmed, as always, by the sight of his friend’s glorious blue eyes. But right now those eyes were filled with tears, and Cas looked so alone, so vulnerable, that Dean forgot all about his good intentions, all about the stern discussion he’d had with himself only moments earlier, and was across the room, laying down on the bed before he’d even had time to think.

They stared at each other across the pillows, until eventually Dean reached out a hand, and brushed a tear gently from his friend’s face.

“What do you need, Cas?” he whispered. “Do you want me to leave? Do you want me to stay with you until you fall asleep? Anything you want, Cas. Ask, and it’s yours.”

Cas thought for a second. “Hold me, like you did upstairs?” he asked eventually, hopefully. Dean caught his breath, and firmly wrestled his traitorous mind back under control. Of course Cas wanted that, desired that security. Everyone did, but humans had forgotten how to ask each other for that simple comfort, too afraid of rejection to take the risk. Apparently Cas had no such qualms. It didn’t mean anything more. Of course it didn’t. Did it?

“Of course, sweetheart,” Dean whispered, and rolled onto his back, holding out a hand in invitation. Cas crossed the distance between them, the almost sinuous grace he’d possessed as an angel still present in his human form. Cas placed his head on Dean’s chest, and the hunter wrapped his arms around the fallen angel, breathing in the smell of soap, and a faint, sea-spray scent that still hung over his friend, like a reminder of Heaven.

Dean found himself suddenly blissfully happy, for what seemed like the first time in his adult life. Gently he rubbed his hand in small, comforting circles on his friend’s back, and turned his head to kiss Cas’s hair, only managing to stop himself at the last possible moment.

Fortunately Cas didn’t seem to notice his lapse in concentration, instead letting out a contented sigh, and falling immediately into a deep sleep.

 

**Day 2:**

**Cas**

Cas woke up, disoriented and anxious. Sleep was something he was still getting used to, especially the sluggishness with which his now-human mind made sense of his surroundings in the moments after waking. Almost instinctively he reached for his friend, whose touch had so soothed him, had taken away the worries and cares he had carried with him for the last month, whose hands had made him feel, finally, safe. But the bed was empty and cold, Dean apparently long gone. Cas caught his breath, feeling the loss like a blow, and fell back against the pillows. Maybe, after having time to think, Dean had decided he didn’t like this new, human, Castiel after all.

With a sigh the former angel swung his feet over the edge of the bed, grabbed the change of clothes Sam had bought for him the previous day, and shuffled off to the bathroom.

After an irritating twenty minutes of attending to his mortal body’s frustrating litany of needs, Cas padded barefoot into the corridor, and was struck immediately by the unmistakable smell of cooking food. He felt his human stomach cramp uncomfortably, making the rumbling sound he’d eventually come to associate with hunger. After a moment of hesitation… would Dean be happy to see him?...Cas’s stomach made another insistent noise, and he gave up, knowing from bitter experience that the hunger would only get worse if he didn’t give his body what it wanted.

As he climbed the stairs to the bunker’s main area he heard Dean’s voice and hesitated, uncertain. But then the smell of cooking food overcame any lingering doubt, and, steeling himself, he walked into the room.

“Cas!” Sam exclaimed, looking up from the table. “There you are. Come on over, Dean made pancakes!”

With a sinking heart Cas saw Dean’s shoulders stiffen, and felt his own face fall in response. He started to walk into the room, but then stopped, suddenly overwhelmed by an unexpected surge of anxiety and hurt.

 “Why weren’t you there when I woke up? Was it something I did?” he blurted out, then caught his breath, horrified. He hadn’t meant to say anything. Silently he cursed himself, this would never have happened when he was an angel. Where had all his control gone?

Sam looked surprised, then, glancing at Dean, angry. Dean looked like Cas had just punched him in the face instead of asking a question, and the ex-angel instinctively hunched in on himself in response.

“Oh, Cas,” Dean breathed. “Oh _hell!_ I’m so sorry, I didn’t even think.” Then the hunter glanced at Sam’s outraged expression, and scrubbed his hands across his face the way humans did when they were upset, or annoyed.

“And before you start in on me, Sam, I _know_ he’s just become human. I only stayed with him until he fell asleep. Ok?”

“I didn’t say anything,” Sam said mildly, but Cas could see that wasn’t entirely true, the brothers _had_ had a conversation; it just hadn’t been a verbal one. Cas realized with a start how much easier he now found it to see the strain on Dean’s face, and the worry on Sam’s, and wondered, for the first time, just what else he’d missed seeing when he was an angel.

“Cas,” Dean said, and Cas’s eyes moved reluctantly back to his friend’s face. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t even have been in your room last night, it was… wrong of me. I left because I realized I crossed a line. There’s… there’s something you haven’t figured out about me yet, and when you do, I don’t want you to think… to think I was taking advantage.”

Cas hadn’t understood a word of that conversation, and looked at Sam for a cue as to how he should react. Sam wasn’t angry anymore, instead he seemed to be trying very hard not to laugh, and had the fond, exasperated look on his face that Cas often saw when Dean had done something particularly endearing, or foolhardy, or both.

“Sam, what’s he talking about?” Cas eventually asked.

Sam did laugh then, and raised an eyebrow at his brother. Cas looked back at Dean, who looked horrified.

“Sam, if you say anything, I’ll murder you in your sleep,” Dean said in a sweet, syrupy voice that belied the menace in his words. “Cas, no asking. That’s cheating.”

Cas opened his mouth to argue further, but then Dean passed him an enormous plate of pancakes, and the former angel promptly forgot all about the strange conversation.

 

**Day 3:**

**Dean**

Dean was making breakfast again, after Cas’s rapturous enjoyment of the pancakes the previous day the hunter had decided that breakfast was going to be a family thing, something the three of them enjoyed together. That is, if anyone ever showed up to eat it.

Cas had been awake for hours, but hadn’t made an appearance in the kitchen yet. Sam had shown up, asked Dean if he’d heard Cas prowling around the bunker all night (Dean had), and gone off to do some research for a hunt, leaving the hunter alone again, with only his racing thoughts for company.

Dean poked at the sausages in the pan, and sighed. He desperately wanted to go find Cas, to ask him what was wrong, but after his total lack of control the other night he no longer trusted himself. So he was cooking again, something that seemed to summon the former angel as quickly as a prayer had in the old days.

And right on cue Cas appeared in the doorway, his clothes rumpled, dark circles under his eyes, his hair unbrushed, and looking completely, utterly _gorgeous_.

Dean mentally slapped himself. So much for keeping his thoughts under control.

Then he noticed something else.

“Cas?” he asked, trying hard to keep a straight face, and failing.

“Yes?” the former angel replied, warily.

“Do you realize your shirt is on inside out? And backwards?”

Cas looked down at himself in bemusement. “There’s a right way to wear it?”

Dean heard a burst of laughter come from the other doorway, and looked over to see his brother clinging to the doorframe, laughing himself stupid. He rolled his eyes.

“Not helping, Sam,” he said, feeling the laughter bubble up in his own chest, and fighting hard to contain it. It wasn’t so much the ex-angel’s inability to master simple human things that was funny, but the look of baffled irritation on his face. Dean took a deep breath, after all, he was a Winchester. He’d been to Hell. He was a serious hunter who killed angels and demons on a regular basis. He didn’t _giggle_.

But then Cas looked at them both, narrowed his eyes, and sniffed, a sound that contained so much exasperation that Dean finally gave in to the inevitable, feeling helpless tears of mirth run down his face.

Eventually Cas turned and started to stalk huffily out of the room, and Dean recovered enough to lean forward and grab his arm.

“I’m sorry, Cas,” he said, wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes. He reached out and took hold of the tag on the shirt, pulling it away from Cas’s skin so he could see it.

“See this? It’s meant to go at the back of the shirt, and on the inside.”

Cas frowned. “So, even humans need a label to tell them how to put their clothes on?”

Dean and Sam sobered instantly, and looked at each other, thinking through the ex-angel’s logic.

“Uh, well, there are… other ways… you know what, Cas? Sure. Yes. We do,” Sam said eventually.

Cas sniffed again, this time in a superior sort of way, and took the hem of his shirt in his hands, pulling it over his head. Dean felt his jaw drop, immediately hypnotized by the lean, hard muscle and smooth, ivory skin that Cas had kept hidden for so long under so many layers. As Cas fussed with the shirt, muttering something that sounded like ‘I don’t see why it matters’ Dean continued to stare, totally aware that he was doing it, but also utterly unable to look away. Then things got immeasurably worse.

“Why do I have to wear clothes anyway?” Cas frowned, as he put the shirt back on the right way. “It’s not cold in here. I don’t like clothes. They stop me from feeling the air on my skin.”

Dean’s brain short-circuited, and didn’t come back online until Sam stepped in front of him, reaching out to help Cas straighten his shirt, obviously giving Dean a moment to compose himself. Dean was both grateful and annoyed, and turned back to the stove to cover his confusion.

“It’s a human thing, Cas,” Sam explained. “There are reasons we wear clothes that have nothing to do with comfort, or temperature.”

“Like what?” Cas asked, grumpily.

“Uh, I’ll let Dean explain that one to you,” Sam said, and Dean could _hear_ the grin in his voice. The bastard.

“Awesome,” Dean muttered. Then, louder, “Some other time, Cas. Sam and I have to go out today. Just a salt-and-burn job. We won’t be gone long.”

“Can I come?” Cas asked, eagerly.

“No!” Dean and Sam chorused in unison, then shared a guilty look at Cas’s crestfallen expression.

“Cas, you’re not recovered from… you know…” Dean said gently.

“My _fall_ ,” Cas said, bitterly. “You can say it, Dean. I know what happened. I was there.”

Dean glanced at Sam, and Cas caught the look, misinterpreting it completely.

“So, I’m not useful anymore, now I can’t fight, or heal, or… or fly… or… _anything_ , is that it?” Cas half-shouted, seeming on the verge of tears.

Sam moved to hug their friend, but Dean stopped him with a small shake of his head. The two of them had talked about this, about Cas’s impending grief over everything he’d lost. Cas didn’t have an outlet for his anger, except for the two of them, and they’d decided that when it happened, they’d be whatever Cas needed them to be. If he needed to yell, and scream, and cry, they’d listen. If he wanted to get away from them for a while, they’d allow that, with strict provisos. If he needed to punch something, well, they’d go find Crowley and stick him in the demon manacles, and kill two birds with one stone. Whatever he needed, they would be there. Just like Cas had always been there for them.

“I was an _Angel_ , you know,” Cas cried out. “I don’t need to be looked after! I’ve been alive for centuries. Millennia! I was there when the first fish crawled out of the water. You don’t need to protect me. I can _help!_ ” He stopped then, breathing hard, and the brothers waited in silence. When it became clear that Cas had said all that he was going to say for now, Sam nodded to Dean, letting him take the lead. The hunter took another moment to compose his thoughts, this wasn’t something he wanted to fuck up.

“Cas,” Dean said eventually, as gently as he knew how, “of course you can help. We’re only human too, you know, and we do alright for ourselves. You’ll always be part of the team. But you’re not coming out with us, not yet.”

The tears started to fall then, and Dean felt his heart twist in his chest at his friend’s distress. He struggled, trying to find the right words.

“Cas, you’re our friend, our _family_ , not just our hunting partner, and this is what family does. We look after each other. You’ve been through something unbelievably traumatic. Humans need time after trauma. You need time. Time to rest, and heal. And… and time to learn how to put your shirt on properly.”

Cas smiled then, a small, shaky smile, but a smile nonetheless, and this time when Sam moved to hug him Dean didn’t stop him. Sam had always been the more physically affectionate of the two of them, so it seemed natural for Sam to be the one to comfort their friend, although the hunter was surprised at the small prick of jealousy he felt at the easy, familiar way his brother and Cas held each other.

But, as he turned back to the stove, and the forgotten breakfast, Dean caught a glimpse of Cas’s eyes staring at him from over his brother’s shoulder, and wondered briefly, with a guilty kind of hope, if Cas had hoped for Dean to be the one to comfort him.

 

**Day 4:**

**Dean**

Cas had disappeared into his room after breakfast the previous day, and both brothers had been sternly rebuffed when they went to check on him. But, after another sleepless night of listening to Cas pace around the bunker Dean had decided to go and talk to his friend, whether he wanted to be talked to or not. It hadn’t gone well. Then Sam had tried, and that hadn’t gone well either.

The brothers hadn’t witnessed Cas’s fall from Grace, just the aftermath, and Cas hadn’t volunteered any information about it. Even Crowley, who usually couldn’t keep his mouth shut, had refused to be brought out on the subject. Dean and Sam both now believed Crowley had been directly involved, but couldn’t prove it one way or the other.

Still, Dean fantasized every night about finding Crowley, and repeatedly hitting him with some kind of iron bar. Or brick. Or any heavy object really, until the demon came clean about what had happened. And then he might hit him some more, just to make a point.

As Dean allowed his thoughts to wander down that dark path, he suddenly wondered if thoughts of revenge were what was keeping his angel awake in the middle of the night.

So, against his better judgement, he decided to ask him.

Slowly he wandered up the stairs and into the living area, his eyes drawn immediately to the fallen angel. It was still vaguely jarring to see his friend without the trench coat and tie that had seemed as much a part of him as the vessel he inhabited, but Dean certainly appreciated the way Cas’s new clothes fit him. And then the hunter saw Cas’s face, which had such a lost, heartbroken expression that Dean forget about everything, except the burning need to make his friend’s pain go away.

“Cas…” Dean started, walking slowly forwards. The ex-angel turned to stare at him, a wild look in his eyes. Dean swallowed hard.

“Cas,” he tried again, deciding to go for the direct approach, “What is it? Why can’t you sleep?” Dean caught himself about to call his friend ‘sweetheart’ again, and viciously swallowed the word back down, ashamed of his lack of control. “Cas, you need to sleep. It’s not healthy to be awake all the time.”

Cas’s eyes darkened with sorrow, and Dean felt his heart break a little more. Quite apart from the brother’s attempts to talk to him early in the morning, Cas had also broken down a few times after breakfast; sometimes he yelled at them, sometimes he cried, sometimes he stared off into the distance like a zombie. Dean knew the signs well enough. Grief, and something else. Something dark, and very human.

After a moment that stretched into eternity, Dean decided his friend wasn’t going to answer. And that was ok. Cas would talk in his own time. And then the former angel spoke, and Dean let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.

“Whenever I close my eyes, I see it happening,” Cas said at last, head bowed. “I _feel_ my Grace ripped away, smell my wings burning. I relive it over, and over, and _over._ Why can’t I make it _stop?_ ”

 _Shit,_ Dean thought immediately, _PTSD._ They’d suspected of course, but they hadn’t known for sure. Cas needed to talk to someone, but who could he talk to? No one would understand, would, in fact, think he was batshit crazy and lock him away. Over Dean’s dead body, of course.

But Dean would try to understand. And keep trying. And most importantly, he’d be there. He took a few steps forward, and instead of saying anything just held out his arms. Cas walked into them without hesitation, laying his head on Dean’s shoulder, his arms wrapped loosely around the hunter’s waist.

They stood that way for a long, long time.

 

**Day 5:**

**Cas**

The last few days had been eye-opening for the former angel. Cas wasn’t sure what it was, but there was something different about the way Sam interacted with him to the way Dean did. He’d never noticed before; as an angel the human’s ways had been so alien to him that nothing they did really made that much sense. But now he was starting to notice things. The way Dean would look at him for slightly longer then Sam would. The way Dean’s eyes changed when they touched. The difference between a hug from Sam to a hug from Dean. And his own reaction to them both. The way Sam’s presence filled him with feelings of happiness and security, and the way Dean’s presence filled him with happiness of a different sort, and also with a tense anxiousness that he couldn’t really describe.

More and more often he found himself making excuses to get a hug from Dean, or to stand close enough that their hands touched. He was also becoming increasingly aware of more of those unspoken conversations between the brothers, and a growing sense of amused exasperation from Sam. Cas was at a loss to explain any of it, he just knew what he saw. It was like the jigsaw puzzle the brothers had on the coffee table, the one with the pieces missing.

He looked at the spot where Dean had held him the previous day, remembering how the hunter’s strong, comforting arms had quieted the racing, uncontrollable thoughts, reducing them from a shout to a whimper. And wondered if he dared ask Dean to stay with him at night again, to keep the nightmares at bay. Was it the ‘personal space’ rule that had made his friend so uncomfortable last time? Or some new, human rule he hadn’t yet grasped?

There were so many ‘human rules’ about what could be said, and when, and what tone of voice to use, and when to smile, and how to dress, and when to eat, and when to sleep, and how/when to touch, and _so on_ that Cas had begun to wonder how anyone ever got anything done. Surely it would be easier if everyone just did what they had to without worrying about what anyone else thought, like angels did.

But then Dean was walking across the room, and Cas forgot about everything else. For some reason Dean’s physical body had become suddenly fascinating to the ex-angel. Always before he’d been drawn to blazing light of Dean’s soul, had often relived the feel of it as he’d dragged the hunter from the fires of Perdition. But now, Dean’s body was somehow equally captivating. The breadth of his shoulders, the shift of muscles under his hands when they hugged, the hard, sinewy length of him. Involuntarily he found his eyes wandering up and down the hunter’s form, as though trying to memorize it.

And, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sam getting up to leave, as he often seemed to do when the three of them congregated together.

“Sit, Sam,” Dean ordered. Sam sat with a resigned sigh.

“That part for the Impala came in, I’m going to go get it. I won’t be long, can you watch…” Dean stopped as Sam made frantic hushing gestures, and glanced quickly behind him to where Cas was sitting.

“Uh, right,” Dean said quickly, “Umm, yeah, Sam, can you watch… the bunker for me? I’ll only be gone a few hours.”

“Can I come?” Cas asked, and Dean hesitated, but Sam broke in before he could say anything.

“Actually, Cas, I need your help with something here today,” he said smoothly. Dean looked immediately suspicious, and Cas felt a small prick of disappointment that he quashed ruthlessly. Sam was always there for him, and if his friend needed his help he wouldn’t say no. Even if it did mean missing out on a car ride with Dean.

Cas thought Dean looked disappointed too, but couldn’t be sure. He found Dean much harder to read than Sam, who wore his heart on his sleeve (that expression had been explained to Cas the previous day, and although he still didn’t quite understand it, he’d decided he liked the sound of it).

“Of course, Sam,” he said, and silently congratulated himself on managing to sound happy even when he wasn’t. Projecting an emotion you weren’t actually having was a skill that was taking him some time to master.

“Ok,” Dean said, hesitating, still looking at Sam suspiciously. “Keep out of trouble, you two.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re implying,” Sam sniffed, and Dean replied, so low that Cas had to struggle to hear, “You know exactly what I mean, Sammy.”

Then Dean left, and Sam grinned the grin Cas had seen on his brother Gabriel’s face many times. A smile that promised mischief.

 

**Sam:**

Sam wasn’t stupid enough to say anything to Cas about his brother’s feelings, he valued his life too highly for that, but the hunter had other plans. Little things that may, or may not, work, but would certainly beat sitting around waiting for Hell to freeze over, which it certainly would before Dean ever made an unprompted move on the fallen angel, or vice versa. And now Dean had finally left him alone with said angel, it was time to put one of those plans into action.

“What do you need my help with, Sam?” Cas asked, standing in the kitchen, looking a little lost. Sam knew he’d upset Cas by asking him to stay behind, his friend was still as easy to read as an open book, but he hoped what they did next would make up for it.

“I’m going to teach you how to make a pie,” Sam said, gesturing at the stack of ingredients he’d gone out and bought the previous day. Cas perked up immediately.

“Pie? That’s Dean’s favorite!” Cas exclaimed. Sam smiled fondly at his friend.

“Yes, Cas, it is. And that’s why we’re going to make it. A surprise.”

The childlike glee on Cas’s face caused a lump a rise in Sam’s throat. Cas deserved this happiness, and so did Dean. But, although he loved his brother dearly, Sam had no illusions that Dean was any more emotionally intelligent than a brick, and Cas was worse by far. Which was why he was, against his better judgement, doing everything he could think of to nudge them in the right direction.

 

It took far more time than Sam had anticipated to get everything done, Cas had to be taught from the ground up, how to use a stove, how to boil water, what salt and sugar were and why they should _never_ be confused, the works. By the end of their lesson the former angel was covered in flour and other unidentifiable foodstuffs, and the kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it, but the look of intense satisfaction on Cas’s face made it worth every second.

They’d just pulled the pie out of the oven when they heard the bunker door open. Cas rocked up on the balls of his feet, looking suddenly flustered.

“He’s back!” Cas exclaimed, far louder than necessary, then pressed a hand to his mouth, eyes wide. Sam swallowed a laugh; seeing Castiel genuinely excited was such a new experience he felt momentarily giddy, swept along by his friend’s obvious joy. 

“Yes,” Sam said, dryly. “I do believe he is. Why don’t you ask him to come in to the kitchen? I’ll just finish the last of the cleaning.”

“Dean!” Cas yelled immediately, dashing out of the room.

“What?!” his brother yelled back, and Sam could hear the fear in his voice, something only a brother would notice.

“I didn’t tell him, you idiot,” Sam muttered to himself, reaching up to wipe the last of the flour from the ceiling. “But you should,” he added, looking at the dessert that was made with very little skill, but an ocean’s worth of love and enthusiasm.

Cas returned, dragging a bemused Dean by the hand. He made to snatch up the pie, but Sam grabbed his arms immediately, stopping him just in time. Cas turned to him with a look of utter betrayal, until Sam pressed some oven mitts into his hands.

“It’s hot, Cas. Remember, we talked about that.”

Cas nodded gratefully, he’d been burned once already and it hadn’t been a pleasant experience for either of them. He quickly pulled on the mitts, and picked up the pie, holding it out for Dean to admire.

“I made you a pie, Dean!” Cas beamed, his face alight with happiness. Dean looked at the pie, and back up at Cas’s shining eyes, a strange look on his face.

“You made this for me?” Dean asked, his voice holding so much tenderness Sam felt almost misty-eyed. “Cas, that’s… that’s so awesome! It looks amazing! We should eat it right now!”

Cas put down the pie, practically glowing with pride, and reached out for a hug, something he’d taken to doing more and more often lately, to Sam’s amusement. Dean returned the hug with interest, and Sam turned away, pretending to get forks and plates, but really just giving the two of them a moment of privacy. And also making sure Dean didn’t see his smug, self-congratulatory grin.

 

**Day 6:**

**Sam**

Sam couldn’t believe the pie trick hadn’t worked. Oh, certainly, his brother seemed to be losing some of his iron control, but after years of watching Dean and Cas stare intensely at each other across rooms, and in cars, and across tables, and even in dungeons… in fact _anywhere_ the two of them happened to be together at any given moment… seeing both of them still so _completely_ oblivious to the feelings of the other had finally snapped something in him. So instead of sensibly letting things cool off for a while, he'd decided to try something else, before he ended up grabbing both of them and yelling “Just KISS already!!” or something else that was likely to get him killed.

So while Dean was out teaching Cas how to buy food from a supermarket, Sam went into his secret stash of books and DVDs, and snuck into Cas’s room, sneaking out less than a minute later, silently congratulating himself on his cunning plan.

 

**Day 7:**

**Cas**

Cas had, for once, fallen asleep immediately the previous evening, worn out from yet another day of trying to learn how to be human, and another day of wanting desperately to be near Dean, a yearning, which had always been strong as an angel, that was now overpowering as a human. The need to touch Dean, to feel his skin, to see his smile, to make him laugh, to just be near him, was baffling, and although Cas often caught Dean looking at him the way he had always done when he was an angel, he was now also deeply aware of a gulf between them, a chasm he didn’t know how to cross.

Grudgingly he sat up, rubbing at eyes that felt gritty from yet another night of tossing and turning. He knew the brothers wouldn’t be up yet, so he went to turn on the small TV in his room. He’d quickly discovered that although he didn’t understand half of what happened in any of the shows, he still enjoyed watching them, and had learnt a lot from the small human interactions documented in them.

As he reached for the remote he saw something that hadn’t been there before, a DVD sitting on top of the player. Cas picked it up, looking curiously at the cover.

“‘Love Actually’,” he muttered, opening the case, and gingerly removing the disc. “Actually what? That doesn’t make any sense.”

After a moment of trying to remember how to use the strange machine he finally got it to work, and sat back to watch the movie.

           

Several of the stories in the movie caught Cas’s attention, but it was one story in particular that captivated him. The story revolved around a man, a writer, who went to stay in a country where he didn’t speak the language, and met a young woman. The writer, and the girl, couldn’t understand each other, but seemed able to communicate by looks, and small touches. It reminded Cas sharply of himself and Dean, especially the way they gazed at each other.

As the movie progressed Cas felt something stir inside himself, something like hope. But still, still he was missing something. What was it about these two that was so fascinating? He found himself sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning forward in anticipation, his heart breaking when the man left for his home country, then lifting as he came back to see the girl again.

And then they kissed.

“Oh,” whispered Cas.

 

**Dean**

Dean looked up to see Cas striding into the room, an intent look on his face that had all the hairs on his body standing up.

“Cas?” Dean asked cautiously, seeing out of the corner of his eye Sam look up, and quickly smother what looked suspiciously like a guilty smile.

“You love me,” Cas announced, and Dean nearly fell over backwards.

“Son of a _bitch_ ,” Dean swore, glaring at Sam.

“You shouldn’t talk about mom like that,” Sam said with a grin, and as Dean felt his lips start to twist into a snarl his brother raised his hands in an ‘I didn’t say anything’ gesture, and wisely stood up, sidling quickly out of the room.

Dean glared after his brother’s back, avoiding Cas’s eyes, trying to think. But it was too late. This was the moment he’d both hoped for, and dreaded. And despite thinking about it almost constantly for the last week, the hunter still found himself woefully unprepared now the moment had actually arrived.

Eventually he wrenched his head back to look into Cas’s shining eyes, and all thought of protesting, or lying, or anything else went straight out the window. Only the truth would do for this moment.

“Yes, Cas. I do. Of course I do. From the very first day. How could I not?”

Dean drew in a deep breath, about to say something along the lines of ‘I’ll always be your friend, above anything else’ but then, suddenly, his arms were full of fallen angel, and soft, pink lips were pressed determinedly to his own. After a couple of seconds in which Dean was so overcome by emotion he thought he might actually die from it, Cas pulled back, looking anxiously into his eyes.

“What?” Dean spluttered, completely and utterly unable to form a more coherent sentence.

Cas bit his lip. “Did I do it wrong? That’s how they did it in the movie…”

Dean wondered briefly what movie Cas was talking about, but that was the very least of his concerns with Cas sitting on his lap, pressed up against him, his face so close they were breathing the same air. Dean blushed furiously as he felt his body react in a totally predictable way, and Cas smiled shyly, although Dean wondered just how much the ex-celestial being knew about human… relationships.

Dean coughed. That was an issue for the future. Right now all that mattered was that _Cas_ had _kissed_ him!

“Uh… that was perfect, Cas,” he whispered, finally. “But, you know, you don’t have to kiss me, if… if it’s not what you want.”

Cas looked confused. “But, I do want to!” he exclaimed. “I love you too, Dean. I didn’t realize it, of course, I didn’t know _what_ I was feeling. But when they kissed I knew; I knew I wanted to kiss you. And that you wanted to kiss me too!"

Cas looked so proud of figuring out Dean’s feelings that he almost laughed, but then his brain caught up to the rest of the conversation.

“Wait, Cas. You… you love me?”

Cas smiled again, and it wasn’t the small smile Dean had become used to seeing from Castiel, the Angel of the Lord, or even the more open, joyous smile of a human Castiel. It was a knowing smile, and Dean stilled, feeling his breath catch in his throat. Cas gazed into his eyes for a moment that seemed to last an eternity, and in those eyes Dean saw an infinity of love, and desire, and a world of ancient secrets that he now knew would never leave, even though Grace no longer blazed behind those eyes. Then the former angel reached out a hand, and placed it on his shoulder, the way he had that day long ago, in the depths of Hell.

“Of course, Dean,” Cas whispered. “From the very first day. How could I not?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys liked that little snippet! I might add another, higher rated chapter later, or something about their first date, but for now, I think I’ll leave it as is. As always, thanks for reading!!


	2. The Date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, turned out I couldn’t help myself, I had to add a bit! A small chapter where Dean tries his hand at romance, Cas learns a little bit more about being human, and Sam is less sneaky than he thinks he is.

Dean broke off the kiss and Cas growled, trying to follow the hunter’s mouth with his own, his fingers digging into Dean’s hips, pressing against him urgently, as though trying to meld their bodies together through sheer force of will.

“Cas,” Dean said warningly, his hands on the former angel’s waist holding him gently, but firmly, still. Cas squirmed and blew out a gusty breath, staring up at Dean with wide blue eyes that were glazed with passion, and a spark of intense frustration.

“Dean!” he whispered, pleadingly. But Dean shook his head firmly. He’d felt the trembling beneath his fingers, heard Cas’s breath hitch in that way it always did when things got to be too much.

Cas shuddered and leaned forward, burying his face in Dean’s neck. Dean wrapped his arms around the fallen angel, in a comforting way this time, instead of a passionate one.

It had been over a month since their first kiss and Dean was taking it slowly - desperately, infuriatingly slowly - even as his body screamed at him to do more. It nearly killed him every time he pulled back from Cas after years of unfulfilled longing, but he was well aware that the ex-angel was still woefully unprepared for the emotional and physical aspects of taking their relationship to the next level.

That first day had especially tested him. It had taken Dean several minutes to recover from the shock of Cas’s declaration of love, several minutes of staring into ancient blue eyes that gazed patiently back at him, waiting with the serenity only someone who had stared into immortality possessed. Eventually Dean had lifted Cas off his lap and stood, still staring into those trusting blue eyes as he walked the former seraph backwards towards the couch. Gently, ever so slowly, he’d laid Cas down on the couch, following him down until he was laying half on top of the ex-angel, lowering his head to capture Cas’s soft, pink lips.

At first they had shared only gentle, close-mouthed kisses, Cas awkwardly, but determinedly, pressing his lips to Dean’s own. But then Dean had gradually deepened the kisses, had gently, almost reverently, held Cas’s face as he slid his tongue slowly across the ex-angel’s lips, which had instinctively parted under his touch. The small, breathy moan Cas had made as their tongues touched for the first time had caused Dean some serious problems, and he’d found himself having to think firmly about terrible things, like demons, and monsters, and Sam’s vegetarian lasagna, in order to bring himself back from the brink.

Soon enough though Dean had had to pull back from the close position they were in for other reasons. He’d noticed right from the first that even a simple caress, like trailing his fingers down Cas’s face, got an incredibly sensitive reaction, but had been too hazed by love and desire to understand what it meant. But eventually something in the way Cas was breathing, or the way he squirmed in his arms, had caused concern to break through Dean’s other, less unselfish, thoughts. And once he’d realized what was happening he’d kicked himself for not realizing sooner.

For a being that was wasn’t used to physical contact of any kind having Dean practically on top of him, being kissed, and held, and touched, had almost brought Cas beyond the point of sensory overload. The ex-angel had been completely overwhelmed, unable to process so much physical and emotional intimacy.

Which was why Dean was now holding Cas gently, making sure things didn’t get out of hand, instead of _shredding_ Cas’s clothes with his bare hands.

Sam coughed pointedly from the kitchen door, startling Dean out of his reverie.

“Hi, Sam,” Cas said, his voice muffled by Dean’s shoulder. His brother raised a questioning eyebrow, and Dean nodded imperceptibly.

“C’mon, Cas,” Sam coaxed. “I’m gonna go get food, and rent some movies. I’ll teach you how to use the ATM if you come with.”

Cas sighed and pushed back from Dean, giving him one last reproachful glance as he slouched off after Sam, who turned to give Dean a knowing and amused grin from the door. Dean made an exceptionally rude hand gesture at his brother, who returned the gesture with interest.

When Sam and Cas were safely out of the bunker Dean quickly made for his room, knowing his brother would be a long time if he was giving Cas any kind of lesson. Especially a lesson that had anything to do with money.

The brothers had taken turns with Cas’s ‘human’ lessons, simple things like how to brush his teeth, how to tie his shoelaces, or, by far the most hair-raising lesson, how to drive a car. The last driving lesson had ended with Dean and Sam swearing copiously and, in one particularly memorable moment, squealing like scared schoolgirls, which had inevitably resulted in a flat tire, a dented bumper, and a completely unrepentant (and vastly amused) former angel who clearly hadn’t yet learned to give Death the respect he deserved.

The driving lessons had quickly been postponed. Indefinitely.

Dean grinned at that memory, finally able to laugh at what had been a genuinely terrifying moment, but the smile faded as he opened the door to his room. His eyes were immediately drawn to the rumpled covers of his bed and he leaned against the door frame with a sigh. Cas had been in his room again. Dean could see the indents in his pillow where the ex-angel had held it clasped tightly to his chest, and his pile of clothes, which never seemed to make it as far as a wardrobe, was clearly missing a few items.

Dean’s eyes roved around the room and as he noticed a few other things out of place he sighed again, kicking himself for his weakness. Despite several attempts to persuade him otherwise Dean had steadfastly refused to allow Cas the comfort of sleeping in his room at night, not because he didn’t desperately want him to, but because being in the same bed as the ex-angel, pressed up against him all night, was more than his fragile control could stand. And so Cas had taken to creeping into his room during the day, something the hunter pretended not to notice, afraid of either embarrassing Cas or giving in to the urge to push their relationship too far, too fast.

With that thought Dean closed the door behind him and locked it (even though no one else was in the bunker), and pulled his laptop out, sitting back on the bed. Briefly he hesitated, eyeing the pillow, and then gave in to the impulse to pull it to his face, inhaling the scent of his angel.

Dean put the pillow down with a sigh.

“I’m an idiot,” he muttered grimly as he opened the laptop, hesitating as he always did, sure beyond all reason that the second he started his ‘research’ the door would fly open and his brother would discover what he’d been doing.

Although Cas had slowly gotten used to being touched consistently, to the point where Dean almost felt comfortable upping the anty in their relationship, the hunter wasn’t quite ready to take them to the next step. And not just because of Cas’s inexperience, but also because of his own. Although Dean was desperately in love with Castiel he’d never actually been with a man before, so whenever Sam and Cas left the bunker the hunter educated himself in a way that required him to carefully clear his browser history afterwards.

Dean knew they couldn’t put it off much longer, not just because he was losing his mind, but also the desperate way Cas pressed up against him when they kissed pretty much guaranteed that the ex-angel was in just as bad a state as he was. However, there were other things to consider. After all, Cas was no ordinary human, and this was no ordinary relationship. Dean was well aware that Cas had been a _literal_ Angel; a being of such perfection and purity that the thought of corrupting that innocence kept Dean up at night, and not in a good way. And also, this was Castiel. The love of Dean’s life. He wanted to do this right for once. To woo Cas, to romance him the way he deserved to be romanced.

 “Thank God for the Internet,” Dean muttered, then winced as he remembered what he was doing with said Internet and, more importantly, _who_ he intended to use his new-found knowledge on.

“Sorry,” he muttered, flicking a guilty glance at the ceiling. Despite being reasonably certain no one was _actually_ listening the hunter still found himself mildly surprised when he wasn’t immediately incinerated by a lightning bolt, which probably said more about his state of mind than any possible reaction of Cas’s absentee father.

After another moment of hesitation, and another suspicious glance at both the ceiling and the door, Dean finally opened the search engine and, blushing furiously, began to type.

* * *

 

Dean ran his thumb across the fingers that tightly held his, silently rehearsing the words in his head. The former angel was snuggled as close to Dean as he could get on the couch, the way he always was when they were alone, almost purring with contentment after a flashback free day. Sam was in the kitchen taking a break from whatever insanely boring research had captured his fancy this time, nowhere near close enough to overhear whatever Dean might say. And yet, still he hesitated.

Cas, who was becoming better and better at reading the brothers, seemed to feel the hesitation and shifted so he was sitting up looking into Dean’s eyes, although he still kept hold of Dean’s hand. Dean stared into Cas’s blue eyes, feeling himself start to sweat under the pressure of his angel’s penetrating gaze.

“What’s wrong?” Cas asked softly.

“Cas…” Dean started, then stopped again, cursing himself. This shouldn’t be this hard. Cas squeezed his hand reassuringly, and the fact that he was making such an effort to use a very human gesture of comfort, something that absolutely did _not_ come naturally to the former angel, finally broke the tension in Dean.

“Cas, I’d like to take you out. On a date. If… if you’d like that?”

Cas frowned, and Dean held his breath.

“Don’t bad things usually happen on dates?”

“Only on TV, Cas,” Dean said, then thought for a minute. He actually couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a date that hadn’t been interrupted by either a monster, a demon, or a frantic phone call from his brother.

“Usually,” he muttered to himself.

“We’ve done this all backwards, Cas,” he said, louder. “If this was a normal situation I would’ve asked you on a date before I told you I loved you, or kissed you. Think of it as a human relationship ritual.”

Cas thought that over and nodded. “Ok, Dean.”

“Ok, awesome. So, where would you like to go?” Dean asked, relieved. Cas frowned, and the hunter saw him shuffle through his movie collection in his mind. Cas had come to rely heavily on movies and TV as a guide to human interaction, with both worrying and occasionally hilarious results.

“Dancing?” he asked, and Dean grinned, wondering which of Sam’s stash of chick flicks (the ones he thought Dean didn’t know about) that Cas had been watching this time.

“Definitely not, Cas. I can’t dance to save my life. I’d just end up treading on your toes all evening. Anything else?”

Cas thought again. “Not dinner, too many people,” he said slowly, and Dean nodded. The ex-angel found himself easily overwhelmed in crowded areas, he kept trying to read everyone’s expressions, an ability humans took for granted but which frustrated Cas to distraction.

“Movies?” Dean suggested, and Cas shook his head.

“I want to watch you, not a screen,” he said matter-of-factly, clearly not realizing how deeply those words touched Dean’s heart. The hunter found himself needing a moment to recover, luckily the former angel was deep in thought and didn’t appear to notice.

“A picnic!” Cas exclaimed at last, and Dean grinned again.

“Sounds perfect, Cas. A picnic it is.”

“Pick me up at 8?” Cas asked, quoting TV again.

“Ok, as long as it’s 8 in the morning, so we can have lunch by the lake.”

Cas smiled a small, shy smile, and jumped up from the chair, apparently going off to do whatever he thought humans did before dates. Dean smiled to himself, then felt a sudden frisson of nerves. This was their first date together, and Cas’s first _ever_ date. He didn’t want to fuck up this important moment.

After a minute of thinking things through, he got up to go find his brother.

 

 

“Cas wants to go on a picnic,” Dean announced as he walked into the kitchen. Sam smiled a soft, fond smile, and Dean felt his heart swell with gratitude. How many people were lucky enough to have someone in their lives so genuinely happy for their happiness?

“So why are you telling me?” Sam asked, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Off you go then, have fun.”

Dean lost the upswell of gratitude immediately. The bastard was going to make him work for it.

“Uh, it’s tomorrow,” Dean said, blushing faintly. “And…”

“And you don’t have the faintest idea what to bring on a picnic?” Sam asked with a smirk.

“That’s about the size of it, yeah,” Dean said defensively. “And,” he added snidely, “I suppose you do?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “I’ll go get the picnic basket out of the storage room.”

“We have a picnic basket?!” Dean asked, looking askance at his brother. Sure, Sam had lots of weird hobbies, but _really?_

“Do I look like someone who buys picnic baskets?” Sam huffed, looking vaguely offended. “The Men of Letters had a whole heap of crap in the storage room. Which you’d know, if you’d ever bothered to take inventory.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean growled. “While you do that, I’ll find the stuff for the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They’re…”

“Cas’s favorite. I know, I know,” Sam broke in with a conspiratorial grin. “Ok, Romeo. You do that. There’s chocolate in the fridge, and strawberries, and wine, although I don’t think you should give Cas any of that… but it might help with your nerves.”

Dean stopped in the middle of grabbing the bread, and looked at his brother. One of those looks the two of them shared that said more than words ever could.

“You knew...” he started to ask, but Sam waved his hand sharply, cutting him off.

“Damn right,” Sam said with a grin, turning to make for the stairs. “Although the ‘picnic’ aspect is a bit of a surprise. My money was on candlelit dinner.”

Dean narrowed his eyes at his brother’s back. “So,” he said, trying to sound casual, “which movie did Cas get this idea from?”

Sam shrugged, not really paying attention. “Not sure. Not one of mine this time.”

Dean grinned and Sam glanced guiltily back, realizing too late that he’d just given himself away.

After another moment of hesitation Sam shook his head and continued on his errand. Dean looked thoughtfully after his retreating form then opened the fridge, looking gratefully at the various romantic goodies inside, silently wondering if maybe he’d been taking his little brother for granted.

* * *

 

Sam was headed down to the storage area when he heard loud banging and mutters coming from Cas’s room. He paused outside, wondering if he should knock, but the door flew open before he could decide. Sam got a brief glimpse of the TV, where a man in a suit holding a red rose was paused in the act of ascending an escalator, before a distinctly bedraggled Castiel appeared in the doorway, breathing hard.

“Sam!” his friend yelped, running into the corridor, grabbing his hand and dragging him into his bedroom. Sam looked around the room, which looked like at least one tornado had hit it, and winced.

“Are you ok, Cas?” he asked, concerned.

Cas gazed back at him, wild-eyed. “No!” he exclaimed, and Sam started to really worry.

“What is it, Cas?” he asked, gently, wishing his brother was there. When Cas’s flashbacks got really bad Dean was the only one who could soothe him.

Cas glanced at the tv, then back at the bed where everything he owned, and, Sam noticed with amusement, even some things he clearly didn’t own, were dumped over the covers.

“I don’t have anything to wear!” he wailed.

* * *

Luckily Sam had warned him in advance to dress up, so Dean was wearing his least-ripped set of jeans and flannel. He’d thought about wearing his fake FBI gear, but that didn’t feel right somehow. And then Cas came up the stairs, without the familiar coat but in dress pants, white shirt, and blue tie and Dean caught his breath, overwhelmed by love… and a sudden melancholy. Even without the coat something about the way Cas held himself in those clothes reminded Dean sharply of the Angel of the Lord who had gripped him tight and raised him from Perdition. Then Cas tilted his head and smiled, a small, uncertain smile, and Dean lost the ability to think altogether.

“Cas, you look… stunning,” he managed eventually, his mouth suddenly dry. Cas came closer, walking slowly, without the bounce in his step he’d acquired as a human, as if the familiar clothes had affected him the same way they had Dean. Then as he got close to the hunter he lost the measured step and smiled that new, joyful smile, crossing the remaining distance between them as fast as he could, kissing Dean enthusiastically.

“Ugh,” Sam winced, making vomiting sounds. “Get out! Go rub up against each other somewhere I can’t see, and leave me in peace!”

Dean grinned as his brother rolled his eyes dramatically and stomped off to the kitchen.

“I thought Sam was happy we were kissing now?” Cas asked, looking confused, and slightly hurt. Dean grinned even wider.

“He is, Cas, but I’m his brother. Humans always find public displays of affection by their family a bit gross.”

“So, we shouldn’t kiss in front of him?” Cas asked, genuinely concerned. “I don’t want Sam to feel bad.”

“Of course we should, Cas!” Dean said, rolling his eyes.

“Why? You just said…”

“ _Because_ it makes him uncomfortable,” Dean laughed. “It’s a brother thing. Imagine if it was you and Gabriel.”

“Oh,” Cas said, his face clearing in understanding, then his brow creasing in remembered annoyance. “He liked to tease me. He said it was because I was his favorite.”

An old grief ghosted across his face then, and Dean put a comforting hand on his shoulder, unable to offer a hug when he was laden down with picnic gear. Cas shook himself, and smiled, and Dean relaxed again.

They both knew it would take Cas years to get over everything that had happened, after all, he had lost _eternity_ , but Dean would be there every step of the way. Starting with their first date.

* * *

Cas sat on the blanket on the ground marveling at how the simplest things, things that in times past he wouldn’t have even thought twice about, had become suddenly inexplicably fascinating; the rough texture of the blanket under his hands, the warmth of the sunlight on his skin, the way the warm breeze ruffled his hair. He held up a hand in front of his face, flexing his fingers, still deeply fascinated by this human form, its marvels and its indignities, its… _his_ … ability to _feel_. Slowly he brought the hand back down, running it gently through the grass, pulling out a handful and holding it up to his nose, inhaling the fresh, earthy scent.

“No need to eat the grass, Cas, I brought lunch,” Dean said, laughter in his voice, and Cas smiled, feeling a now-familiar thrill run through him. He turned to face Dean, struck, as always, by the overwhelming urge to place his hands on the hunter, to stare into his green eyes forever, to burn his hand-print into his soul and reclaim him all over again. He looked around quickly, pleased to see they were alone. He turned back to Dean, keeping himself still only through sheer force of will. Cas had learned that no matter how good it felt humans didn’t touch each other all the time, but he always felt slightly empty without the hunter in his arms, without that tangible proof that Dean was there. Was _his._

Dean’s smile slipped, changing from light-hearted and teasing to something more intimate. He hesitated, and Cas felt his pulse quicken as they gazed at each other. But then Dean shook himself and started laying out the food. Cas sighed, disappointed, and lay back on the blanket, preparing to watch the clouds, something he now found mesmerizing despite knowing they were just water droplets in the air.

But then Dean was there, running a hand up his chest, thoughtfully tugging gently on his tie. Cas caught his hand and held it tightly to his chest, over his now-racing heart. Dean stared back down into his eyes, turning the hand he held so it was grasping Cas’s fingers. They stayed that way for what Cas knew to Dean would seem like a long time.

“You’re so beautiful,” Dean whispered eventually, and Cas swallowed hard, the new-found knowledge of the hunter’s difficulty expressing emotion making his words doubly meaningful. He reached up a hand and gently touched Dean’s cheek, still lacking the words to describe his feelings; most human languages were too limited. He thought for a second, he knew the brothers knew just enough Enochian to get them in trouble, but they both understood another language, one that was similar enough to his own to say what he wanted to say. Latin.

“In aeternum te amabo, Dean,” he whispered. _I will love you for eternity._

“Ol Aziazor Elasa, Castiel,” the hunter whispered back, and Cas felt something shiver through him at hearing the words of love spoken in the language from the time before time. It was deeper somehow, more meaningful. He felt Dean studying his reaction.

“You like that, love?” Dean murmured with a smile. “I practised for a long time in the mirror.”

“You learned Enochian?” Cas whispered, overcome.

“Enough,” Dean said softly. “Enough for this moment.” The hunter shifted a bit, looking embarrassed. “Was it ok?”

Cas nodded, suddenly unable to speak. Instead he reached up, and pulled Dean down into a long, lingering kiss. Eventually Dean pulled back, breathing hard, and Cas felt that small flutter of pride he always felt at being able to affect the normally stoic hunter so deeply. Then that feeling fled, to be replaced by frustration as Dean sat back on his heels, and after a last, playful caress down his chest went back to arranging the food.

Cas lay back with a sigh. He knew what he wanted from the hunter, even if he wasn’t sure how to go about it. He knew Dean wanted it too, so why was he holding back? A small fear raised its head from somewhere deep inside him, a place he hadn’t really known existed. Could it be that the Righteous Man was hesitant to commit himself so deeply to a fallen angel?

* * *

 

The picnic had gone better than Dean had dared hope, thanks in large part to his brother’s continued meddling in affairs that were none of his damn business. The chocolate had been the highlight of the lunch, Cas’s face when he ate one of the chocolate-coated strawberries was the face Dean hoped to elicit from the former angel in other, less innocent circumstances, and after a few moments he’d had to look away before his body forgot they were in a public place.

Now he was packing up the rubbish, but it was taking him far longer than it should have, his eyes continuously drawn hopelessly, inevitably to the former angel sitting on the other side of the blanket. Just an arm’s length away. After yet another moment of helpless staring Dean dragged his attention back to his task, but looked up quickly again when he heard Cas suck in a breath. Cas was smiling, staring at something in the distance and Dean smiled too, until he looked and saw what it was.

“Cas,” Dean started, but it was too late.

“There’s a cat on the other side of the lake!”

Dean caught his breath anxiously, knowing what was coming next. It had been a long time since Cas had had a flashback, or a bout of grief too intense for his newly-human mind to cope with. It had been far too good to be true. Sure enough, Cas tensed up, trying to spread non-existent wings. As his face crumpled Dean was by his side instantly, holding him close.

“Shh, love, it’s ok. I’m here,” Dean murmured. Cas shuddered into his chest, then pulled back, smiling a watery smile. Dean relaxed fractionally; Cas’s bouts of grief over losing his wings weren’t as intense, or as long-lived as they had been. Dean liked to think he was part of the reason for that.

As the confusion was leaving Cas a strange mixture of old and new had come to uneasy truce in his demeanor. When they discussed hunts the laser focus, the complete and total bad-assery that was Cas the warrior angel shone through, and the brothers were leaning on his experience more and more as time went on. When they were out in public the arrogant shell that Castiel the Angel of the Lord had kept up like a suit of armor was in place, only the brothers, who knew him so well, could see the confusion and fear underneath.

When the three of them were alone Cas laughed, and smiled, and cried, by turns openly joyful, or completely distraught, as he gradually learned how to deal with the depth and breadth of his new human emotions. It had been a tough few weeks for Cas and both Dean and Sam had been surprised, and gratified, by the level of trust their friend had placed in them as he stumbled his way through the pitfalls of human interaction.

Through it all the innocence, the righteousness, the compassion that had always been the core of Castiel, human or not, was now on full display in the person he was becoming. With a hint of mischief underneath that caused Dean occasional strange flashes of déjà vu; something about a particular way Cas would smile at a joke he actually got, or the way he snarled at anyone who tried to stop him from having several coffees throughout the day.

Dean and Sam both deeply regretted allowing Cas, who already had more energy than a roomful of puppies, to try coffee.

And above it all was one truth, one inescapable fact.

“I love you,” Dean murmured into Cas’s hair.

“I know,” Cas replied, and Dean felt him laugh.

“Did Sam make you watch a Star Wars marathon again?” he sighed, acting irritated, but secretly pleased. The strong friendship between his brother and Cas had turned out to be just as crucial in helping the former angel understand human connections as their own relationship was.

“Yes, although I didn’t really understand it. There aren’t any creatures like that out there.”

Cas tensed as Dean sucked in a breath, about to ask the obvious question. But then, just as quickly, deciding that, actually, he really _didn’t_ want to know.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” Cas whispered, and Dean shifted around so he could look into the ex-angel’s eyes.

“Sorry for what, sweetheart?” he asked, gently.

“I… I wish I could share it all with you. There’s so much I want to tell you, but I can’t. There are rules.”

“Even now?” Dean asked, feeling an unexpected stab of sorrow. He wanted so much to know everything about Castiel. To know every tiny detail of his life, to share as much of his angel as he could, to feel the connection that came from knowing someone so intimately.

“Especially now,” Cas whispered, something like fear in his eyes. And Dean suddenly felt his mouth go dry, suddenly understood so many things about the last few weeks that hadn’t initially made sense. The way when they were out Cas would make a movement, or a sound, or cast a look off to the side, as if seeing something no one else could. The way he would withdraw into himself sometimes, and put a possessive hand on Dean’s shoulder, even if the three of them were in a part of town with no one else around. The way he refused to be drawn out on anything even remotely related to his time in Heaven.

And Dean cursed himself for not realizing, and for possibly accidentally compromising Cas’s safety. The message was clear in retrospect; the angels were watching.

And Dean wondered then, for the first time, if Castiel hadn’t Fallen so much as been… pushed.

Cas must’ve seen the anger in his face because he reached out and squeezed Dean’s hands tightly, shaking his head almost imperceptibly. Dean squeezed his hands back, letting Cas know his silent message had been received and understood, quietly marveling at how fast the former angel was learning the unspoken human language of touch and movement.

Dean moved back to his side of the blanket and leaned back on his elbows, looking across at Cas, who imitated his posture, tilting his face up to feel the sun. Dean continued to stare at Cas, at the bliss on his face at the feeling of warm sunlight, at the angle of his neck, the skin just begging to be caressed, to have his hands, and his mouth on it. The hunter sighed, and for what seemed like the thousandth time that day wrestled his traitorous thoughts firmly back under control.

“Is there anything you want to ask me, since I can’t ask you anything?” he said eventually.

“One thing still confuses me,” Cas said, turning onto his side, propping his head on his hand. Dean was the one who imitated the ex-angel’s posture this time.

“Only one thing, Cas?” he asked, teasing gently.

Cas sighed. “One big thing.”

Dean raised his eyebrows questioningly, surprised when Cas hesitated.

“Why is it called a picnic?” he asked eventually. Dean bit his lip, this was the first time the ex-angel had failed to say exactly what was on his mind. The hunter wondered if he should push the issue but decided to answer the question first, to give Cas time to collect himself.

“I’m not sure, Cas."

Cas frowned. “I thought you all knew everything like that.”

Dean laughed, deciding to let the ‘you all’ go as well. Cas still had trouble thinking of himself as a human, unsurprising considering he'd only been one for a couple of months, as opposed to uncounted millennia as an angel.

“We’re not walking encyclopaedias, Cas. I know lots of useless information, but not even Sam knows all the trivia in the world. The human brain just can’t handle it.”

“Then how do you find out something you don’t know?”

“We ask Google,” Dean said with a grin, then frowned in confusion as Cas’s expression clouded over.

“Who’s Google?” Cas almost hissed. “Is he one of the older gods? Do you… do you _pray_ to him for answers?”

Dean opened his mouth to reply ‘of course not,’ but then thought about all the times Sam had yelled at his phone, begging for directions during a hunt, or the frantic, furtive way he himself had been using the search engine recently. Then realized he’d taken too long to answer as Cas’s eyes started to smoulder dangerously. Even without his powers Cas could be downright scary when he was angry.

“No, Cas, of course not. It’s just technology,” Dean said hurriedly, and Cas relaxed. The former angel still treated anything to do with technology with the same cautious reverence as Dean would give a snarling tiger.

Dean quickly whipped out his phone and looked up the answer, holding the device so Cas could see what he was doing.

“It’s from the French word piquenique, meaning an outing with food. Now, what did you _really_ want to ask me?”

Cas scowled, and Dean smiled internally, knowing the former angel was jealous of his ability to read him so easily. Eventually Cas looked down at the blanket, picking at the threads, apparently mustering courage.

“If… if you’ve always loved me, why didn’t you ever tell me how you felt?”

“Hmm, let me think,” Dean said, furrowing his brow. “Why didn’t I, a hopeless fuck-up of a human being, tell Castiel, the Angel of the Lord, that I was… am… desperately, hopelessly in love with him? Tough question, Cas.”

Cas frowned. “Is that sarcasm?”

“You bet your sweet angelic ass it’s sarcasm,” Dean snorted. Then he sighed. “Look, I always told myself that if you ever asked why I acted differently around you, I wouldn’t lie about it. But you didn’t ask, and honestly, I probably would’ve lied anyway. I was too afraid of damaging our friendship, too scared of your reaction.”

Cas thought about that for a few minutes, staring at Dean in that way he had that made Dean feel like the ex-angel was still seeing something that wasn’t just his expression, could hear something that wasn’t just his words. He tried not to squirm while Cas decided on what he wanted to say.

“You didn’t need to be afraid,” Cas said at last. “I have always loved you, Dean, even if I didn’t know it then.”

Dean caught his breath. “I love you too, Cas. So much. You know that, right?”

Cas nodded, a small smile on his lips.

“I do. But, maybe you should show me anyway?”

Dean felt his pulse quicken and reached over, pulling Cas into a tender, lingering kiss.

For once Cas was the first to pull away. Dean raised an eyebrow questioningly at his suddenly determined expression.

“What are you thinking, Cas?” he asked, although he already knew. The look in the ex-angel’s eyes was enough.

 

Cas looked into the hunter’s green eyes, feeling the almost unbearable longing shoot through him, too strong to resist. And saw an answering longing on Dean’s face. He breathed deeply in, and out, wondering how to phrase what he wanted, and then deciding it didn’t matter. Dean would understand.

“I’m thinking we should go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I hope you enjoyed that little add-on to the story. If I end up writing a third chapter (on what was meant to be only a one-chapter fic! When will I learn to leave well enough alone?!) no prizes for guessing what it’ll be about!  
> Thank you so much to everyone who commented and left kudos, I really, really appreciate it. I love you guys!


	3. Insights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely readers! Be assured, I am working on the third chapter, but it’s taking forever because of *expletive deleted* responsibilities *grumble*  
> So, what’s this chapter then, you might be asking. Well, it’s not so much a chapter as a selection of deleted scenes, I often find when I’m writing a fic that I cut out as much as I put up, and in the process of writing the third chapter I’m finding myself referencing the ‘human lessons’ Cas received from the brothers, which I cut from both chapters. So, in no order of importance, here are the ones that have (hopefully) been edited the most. Thank you so much again for all your wonderful comments, and sorry for this unorthodox update. I love you even more than Cas loves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!  
> Note: all scenes take place between chapters 1 and 2 unless stated otherwise.

 

**Cas learns about:**

**Shoelaces**

“Like this, Cas,” Dean explained, leaning over and undoing his own shoelaces again. “You make a bunny-ear with one lace, then the other bunny runs around the first bunny, and through the rabbit hole, and… hey presto! Shoelaces tied.”

“That’s not a bunny,” Cas frowned. “Bunnies have four legs, and fluffy tails.”

Dean gritted his teeth at the sound of muffled laughter, able to picture the exact expression on his brother’s face without even having to look. Sam had offered to teach Cas how to perform this particular task, but Dean hadn’t wanted to give up even a second of extra time with his angel. Even a _frustrating_ second.

However, Cas, who in other ways was the most fearsomely intelligent creature Dean had ever encountered, seemed to be almost deliberately obtuse when it came to learning some human things, as if by that token resistance he could still claim to be more angel than human.

But just because Dean understood the reasoning didn’t mean he wasn’t going to force Cas to learn the things he needed to learn. Hunting was a dangerous business and Cas needed to know how to look after himself… just in case. And he _certainly_ wasn’t going to fail in this task with his _insufferably_ smug brother sitting on the couch judging his every move.

“Ok, ok, forget the bunnies,” Dean sighed. “Just try and mimic what I’m doing.” As he bent down to start undoing his shoelaces again Cas piped up with his most-frequently uttered word.

“Why?”

“Why what?” Dean asked, looking up into Cas’s puzzled blue eyes, feeling suddenly inexplicably vulnerable in his crouched position.

“Why do you have shoelaces? Wouldn’t it make more sense to have shoes that don’t have to be done up?”

Dean pondered that for a moment.

“We do, Cas,” he said eventually.

“Oh.” Cas appeared satisfied with that answer, so Dean began to explain the shoelaces again.

“But,” Cas said, and Dean sighed, standing up, with a sideways glare at his brother, who had his face buried in the couch cushions, beating his fist against the fabric in a vain attempt to smother his _completely_ unwarranted laughter.

“If you have shoes that don’t need to be done up, why do you still wear shoes that _do_ need to be done up?”

“Just because.”

“Because _why?_ ”

“Because I said so!” Dean snapped, and Cas crossed his arms defiantly.

“Because shoelaces make a great impromptu garrotte,” Sam said, his voice still suspiciously muffled.

Dean turned to stare at his brother, who was now covered almost entirely by a blanket (except for his long legs, which never fit under any kind of covering), apparently in the child-like belief that if they couldn’t see him, they wouldn’t know he was laughing himself stupid.

“Oh,” Cas said, mollified. “That makes sense. Why didn’t you just say so in the first place?”

Dean breathed in through his nose, and out through his mouth in a deliberately calming action, and bent down to grab his shoelaces again.

“Ok, so you make the bunny ear…”

“It still doesn’t look like…”

“Cas?”

“Yes?”

“It’s lucky you’re so goddamn gorgeous.”

 

**Beer**

 “Can I have one?” Cas asked, walking over to the table where Sam and Dean were sitting, enjoying a celebratory drink after a successful hunt.

“Yeah, sure.”

“No!”

The brothers glared at each other as Cas stopped with his hand halfway towards grabbing a bottle, looking at Sam in surprise.

“Why can’t he have one if he wants one?” Dean asked angrily.

“Because I don’t want him to start coping with things the way…” Sam stopped midsentence, knowing immediately that he’d gone too far. At the hurt in his brother’s eyes he mentally cursed himself straight back to Hell, but it was too late to snatch the words back.

“The way I do,” Dean finished the sentence softly, then looked at Cas, a strange look in his eyes. “You might be right, Sammy. Cas… maybe don’t drink the beer.”

Cas glared at them both, then, unexpectedly and far too fast for the brothers to stop him, grabbed two beers and ran into the kitchen, guzzling them down as he went.

“Shit!” the brothers yelped in unison, leaping from their chairs.

“Ugh, that’s disgusting!” came Cas’s disgruntled voice as he wandered back into the room. “Why do you like it so much? It tastes like dirt.”

Sam looked at the two empty bottles dangling from Cas’s hands, and rolled his eyes. Dean sat back down with a sigh, and started drinking his own beer. Cas sat down in the chair across from them, looking more than a little put out.

“You drink it so much, I thought it would taste amazing!” he whined. Sam looked at his brother and they shared a grin, of all the human senses Cas was now in possession of, taste seemed to fascinate him the most. Sam opened his mouth to teasingly ask Cas how he knew what dirt tasted like, but then shut it again, deciding the answer he got would probably be an honest, and totally unwanted, one.

“Taste isn’t everything, Cas,” Dean said sagely.

“Damn right,” Sam agreed, and the brothers leaned across the table, clinking their bottles together in a silent toast to that sentiment.

Then Cas abruptly hiccuped, looking completely surprised by his body’s sudden betrayal, and his eyes started to glaze over.

“Are you ok, Cas?” Sam asked, quickly smothering a grin. “It probably wasn’t a good idea to drink two. Your body isn’t used to it the way ours are.”

Cas looked at Sam, smiling a slightly wobbly smile. Sam fought down a sudden stab of melancholy, abruptly reminded of the first time Dean had snuck a six-pack of beer from their Dad’s fridge, so many years ago.

“You’re such a good friend, Sam,” Cas murmured, slurring his words a little.

“Lightweight,” Dean muttered under his breath, hiding a smile as he tilted his beer up to take another sip. Fast as lightning Cas reached out and grabbed the bottle from his hands, guzzling the remaining contents before Dean could grab it back.

Reacting almost without thinking Sam quickly sculled his own beer and grabbed the last two from the table, hiding them under his shirt, grimacing as the cold bottles touched his skin.

Cas giggled. “That’s silly, Sam! You can’t wear bottles!”

“That’s right Cas,” Sam said soothingly. “I’m just holding them for... for safekeeping.”

Cas was quiet for a long moment, seemingly lost in thought.

“You know, in Heaven, we didn’t have beer, or even food,” Cas said eventually, his voice holding a wistful kind of melancholy. “And we could look however we wanted to. That is… that is, before… before… before he…”

Sam sat bolt upright as Cas trailed off, and out of the corner of his eye saw Dean tense up and lean forward.

“He?” Dean asked, trying to sound casual. “He, who, Cas? Do you mean Crowley? What did he do?”

Cas looked blearily at Dean. “Can’t,” he said cryptically.

“Cas… you can tell me anything, you know that,” Dean said softly. Cas nodded.

 “Doesn’t matter. Here is better. Heaven didn’t have you.”

Then, abruptly, the former celestial being lay his head on the table and started to snore.

Dean leaned back in his chair with a groan. Sam sighed and removed the bottles from his shirt, opening them and handing one to his brother, who took a contemplative sip.

“And I bought the expensive stuff too,” Dean grumbled, clearly trying not to show how touched he was by Cas’s words, or how frustrated he was at being so close to finding out what had happened. Sam just smiled. He, like Cas, knew it didn’t matter how the angel had fallen. He was right where he was meant to be.

**Shopping (takes place during Chapter 1: Day 6)**

“Did you find the bread?” Dean asked, as Cas appeared abruptly next to him. The hunter tried not to flinch; even without his wings the former angel retained an almost uncanny ability to sneak up on people.

“Yes!” Cas grumbled. Dean scrubbed his face to hide his smile. He’d never say so out loud but Cas was just so damn _cute_ when he was frustrated, especially with his soft, pink, oh so _kissable_ lips pushed out in a pout.

Dean bit his cheek, hard. Now was not the time for those kinds of thoughts. They were _shopping_ , dammit. The most mundane, boring task known to man. If he couldn’t even keep his thoughts under control here, what hope did he have?

“So, where’s the bread then?” he asked reasonably, once he trusted his voice enough to speak. Cas just glared at him.

“ _Which_ bread?!" Cas hissed eventually. “There are _thousands_ of them! There’s wholemeal, and raisin, and white, and brown, and something-free… it started with g but I couldn’t work out what it said… and high fibre, and…”

“Whoa,” Dean said, holding up a placating hand. As Cas’s voice had started to rise, so had the number of people who were noticing them, never a good thing for a hunter, even without a fallen angel in tow.

“Sorry, Cas. I should’ve been more specific. Sam likes wholemeal bread, but I’m the one doing the shopping so we’re going to buy plain old white bread. The cheapest one they have, ok?”

Cas nodded, visibly calming himself, like a bird smoothing ruffled feathers.

“Do you want to try again without help, or do you want me to come with you?” Dean asked. Cas hesitated briefly, but then shook his head abruptly and stalked off towards the bread section without another word.

Dean ran a hand through his hair, angry at himself. He’d known as soon as the words left his mouth that it had been the wrong thing to say. Cas hated having to rely so totally on them for small, everyday things; the ex-angel was used to being the one with the power, the one the brothers asked… _prayed to_ … for help. Dean suspected it was that reliance that had caused Cas to run in the first place, to avoid them for that first terrifying month, the month that had nearly driven Dean insane with fear and grief.

“This one?” Cas asked, appearing at his side again, jolting Dean out of that dark train of thought, and almost surprising him into letting out a very un-manly squeak of alarm. The ex-angel smiled, obviously pleased with his small revenge, and Dean narrowed his eyes, but let it pass. This time.

Dean looked down at the bread. “Perfect, Cas!” he exclaimed. Cas smiled a small, proud smile, and placed the bread in the trolley.

“What next?” he asked.

“Milk. At least I think that says milk,” Dean said, squinting at the shopping list his brother had scrawled before they left. “The milk will be in one of the cold sections.” Then, as Cas started to head off, he reached out and grabbed his friend’s arm, remembering what had just happened with the bread.

“Wait… we need just ordinary milk, two liters. None of that low-fat crap Sam likes.”

Cas nodded and disappeared, reappearing much faster this time, the correct milk in hand.

“Why are there so many different types?” he asked grumpily, his hands shaking almost imperceptibly. Dean bit his lip, it was almost time to wrap up the shopping lesson, there were too many people, too many new things, and Cas was clearly getting overwhelmed.

“People like to have choices, Cas,” Dean explained. “Not everyone likes the same stuff. Once we work out what you like best, we can buy that. But for now, you’ll just have to trust that my taste is much better than Sam’s. Now, what would you like for dinner?”

“Burgers?” Cas asked, perking up immediately, and turning to make for the meat section without any prompting from the hunter.

“That’s my angel,” Dean murmured with a smile, too low for Cas to hear, and followed the retreating form of his friend, trying very, very hard not to notice how well the ex-angel’s new pants fit him.

 

**Shampoo**

Cas rubbed at his hair with the soap again and sighed. It didn’t seem to matter how much he scrubbed, it still felt greasy and horrible. It didn't make any sense, he didn’t have nearly as much hair as Sam, and yet Sam’s long hair always looked clean and silky.

After a few more frustrating minutes of scrubbing at his scalp Cas put the bar of soap down with another heavy sigh. He hated asking for help, but there was obviously some trick to this, something he was missing. It was time to ask the expert.

 

“Sam, why isn’t my hair getting clean?”

Sam clapped a hand over his eyes, and Dean’s mouth dropped open in an expression of shock that even Cas could read. He sighed, wondering what strange human thing he’d messed up this time.

“Cas, put some clothes on,” Sam yelped.

“I can’t put on clothes, I’m having a shower,” Cas replied, quite reasonably he thought.

“You’re not in the shower right now, you’re in the living room!” Sam said, his voice sounding strangely strangled, his hand still over his eyes. “Put some clothes on before you freeze to death.”

Cas glanced at himself, confused.

“It’s ok, I’m wearing a towel!”

“Towels are meant to go around your waist, Cas, not be worn like a cape!”

Cas frowned. That didn’t make any sense.

“Then why are they shaped like a cape?” he muttered, tying the towel clumsily around his waist. He shivered. Now he really was cold. Dean still hadn’t said anything, and Cas was starting to worry. The hunter’s face was white as a sheet, and his eyes had a glazed, almost fever-bright look to them.

“Are you ok, Dean?” he asked.

“Fine,” Dean croaked, scrubbing a hand across a face that was now bright red instead of chalk white.

Cas saw an eye appear between Sam’s fingers, and after a second the hunter removed his hand with a sigh.

“What was that about hair, Cas?” he asked eventually.

“My hair. It still feels greasy after I wash it. Why?”

Sam looked thoughtful. “Are you just using water to wash it?”

“No, I use soap.”

“Soap… as in _a bar of soap?!_ ” Sam asked, looking so genuinely horrified Cas took an involuntary step backwards.

“Yes?” he replied, warily.

“Cas, the horrible cheap soap we buy won’t do a thing for your hair, in fact it’ll probably give you dandruff,” Sam exclaimed, with a small shudder. Cas frowned.

“So what do I use then?”

“There’s a bottle of shampoo in the shower, use that. Just a small amount. It’ll make your hair clean. Then wash it all out of your hair, and use conditioner afterwards. Make sure it's all completely gone before you get out of the shower,” Sam instructed.

Cas sighed. He’d never remember all that.

“Can’t you just come to the shower and show me how to do it?” he grumbled.

“NO!” both brothers yelled in unison. Cas felt his jaw drop in shock at being so resoundingly rejected. Sam leaped up like he’d been scalded by a red-hot poker.

“I just remembered I have somewhere I need to be that’s absolutely _not here!_ ” he muttered, grabbing the car keys from the table and practically running from the room.

“Fine, I’ll work it out myself!” Cas huffed, turning and stalking back to the bathroom.

 

“I’ll help you, Cas!” Dean called out, finally finding his voice. But it was too late, the ex-angel was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed those little insights into life in the bunker, and I promise I’ll get straight back to the actual storyline! Thank you all again so much for your kudos and encouragement, it really does mean the world to me!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! So here it is, sorry for the huge wait for this chapter! Real life suuuuucks!! This also got completely out of hand, and is much longer than I originally intended. I hope you enjoy it! As always, thank you so much for all your kudos and comments, I’ve loved writing this fic so much, and to know you’ve enjoyed reading it makes me so, so happy!  
> For the first time in this fic I feel obliged to add a warning. This chapter has lots of hanky panky. LOTS. Sooooo much. I’m not even kidding. Also, feels. Like, yikes! Dean has emotions!  
> Consider yourself warned ;)

Sam grabbed Dean’s wallet and counted out another wad of cash. With a grin he reached over and dialed room service.

“Yes, another one of whatever I ordered last, thanks. Room 56.”

Just as he hung up the phone he was distracted by a buzz from his mobile. With an irritated sigh he leaned over and grabbed it, his frown melting into a rueful smile when he read the message.

_I need the bunker._

“No shit, Sherlock,” Sam muttered, pouring another bottle of bubble mix into the huge spa bath and leaning back with a blissful sigh.

“Now, where did I put that champagne?”

* * *

Dean opened the door to the bunker, allowing Cas to walk through before him, mainly to stop his friend – _lover?_ \- from noticing the slight tremble in his hands, or how flushed his face must look. The drive back to the bunker had been just long enough to allow doubt to set in, and although Cas seemed calm Dean was a wreck, his emotions so raw it felt like he was just a bundle of walking, talking nerve endings. Even looking at Cas made his insides feel like they were at some kind of rave, so Dean tried to busy his hands and eyes with other things, like opening doors.

Cas didn’t hesitate, he turned and headed straight towards the bedrooms, and the hunter scrubbed at his face, willing his legs not to shake, willing his body to move, to be what Cas needed him to be. Calm. In control. No one wanted their first time to be with a quivering wreck.

If, indeed, it was Cas’s first time. Dean was pretty certain it was, but Cas had been alive a very, very long time.

Instead of calming his nerves that thought just made Dean even more nervous, which was just _awesome_ , and exactly what he needed _right now_ , with Cas just down the stairs, almost within reach… almost close enough to touch. And kiss. And do other things to, things Dean had only dared to think about in the absolute privacy of a locked room.

With that thought Dean finally found the strength to move, only to find Cas standing at the bedroom door, staring at it strangely.

“Everything ok, love?” Dean murmured, coming up behind Cas, putting his arms around his waist, placing a comforting kiss at the base of his neck. Cas sighed and leaned back into him, in a boneless, liquid sort of way that only the ex-angel seemed able to achieve.

“Yes,” he whispered, opening the door and stepping inside as Dean let go. “I was just thinking about that night, when I came in and looked for you, but you were gone. I looked for you everywhere. I always meant to ask where you went.”

Dean stopped in the doorway, confused.

“Cas, I’ve always been here at night. We’ve never left you alone in the bunker after dark.”

Cas turned around, frowning.

“Yes, you did,” he insisted.  

“When?” Dean asked, stepping into the room and closing the door. Surreptitiously he glanced around, noting that the room was missing its usual piles of empty beer bottles, dirty clothes, and half-eaten sandwiches. Sam. Damn him. Damn his nosey, interfering, irritating, meddling, fucking _amazing_ brother.

“Last week,” Cas said, crossing his arms defiantly. Dean raised his eyebrows, suspicion dawning.

“What else happened, Cas? Anything weird, or out of the ordinary? Did the bunker look different?”

Cas thought for a minute. “Well… it did seem larger than usual. And I had trouble finding your room. And there was a ginger cat swimming in the bathtub. I thought that was a bit odd, but he let me pet him so that was ok.”

Dean chuckled. “Sweetheart, that was a dream. It wasn’t real.”

Cas’s face cleared. “Oh. Are you sure? It _felt_ real.”

“I’m sure, Cas. It was just a dream. Cats don’t like water for a start.”

“They don’t?” Cas frowned. “Well, ok then. How can you tell if it’s not real? Do you have dreams like that?”

“Sometimes,” Dean replied, feeling a creeping horror in the pit of his stomach as he remembered the soul-crushing nightmares he’d had the month Cas had been missing. Cas, just out of reach, in terrible danger. Cas, his trusting, naïve angel at the mercy of the kind of people who preyed on the helpless and innocent. Cas, dead in a gutter, his last words a cry of help to a hunter who never showed up to save him.

“What do you dream about most?” Cas asked, and Dean almost flinched, thinking the ex-angel had somehow seen his thoughts. He hesitated.

“This,” he whispered eventually, taking a step forward and capturing Cas’s lips with his own. The former angel melted against him, letting out a husky sound of longing that made all the hairs on Dean’s body stand on end.

Dean stepped back, panting, pushing the tide of desire down. It wasn’t time. Not quite yet.

Cas stared at him, his blue eyes glazed, his pink lips slightly parted, hectic color touching his cheeks, his pupils so dilated his eyes looked almost black. The sight alone was nearly enough to destroy Dean’s composure, and he bit his tongue so hard he almost drew blood. After a long, long moment he finally found his voice.

“Cas, do you know what it means to…uh…” Dean struggled, fighting not to blush, “uh… make love… to someone?”

Cas smiled. “I’m well aware of how humans mate, Dean,” he said dryly. “You do it so often, it would be hard to remain totally ignorant.”

Dean did blush then. “Ugh, never say the word ‘mate’ again. That makes it sound so weird. But what I actually meant was have you never, you know…with someone?”

Cas squirmed. “I, uh… no. Gabriel and Balthazar both tried to get me to ‘enjoy’ my trips to earth. But I’m not like my brothers; I never really let my vessel feel its baser urges. I know the basic mechanics, but... not how it’s supposed to feel.”

Dean let out the breath he’d been holding, not sure if he was terrified or relieved. “It’s ok, Cas. I was just curious. Now I need to know, would you… would you like to?” Dean made a vague hand gesture, as uncomfortable as he’d ever been, but needing to know. Needing to be _sure_ Cas understood what was happening, what he was consenting to.

“Yes,” Cas whispered. “Yes, I would like that. Very much.”

Dean blew out another breath. “Ok, Cas. I want that too. More than anything. But, if at any point you feel uncomfortable, or you don’t like what I’m doing, or you want me to stop, you have to tell me, ok? Tell me _straight away!_ ”

Cas nodded, and Dean reached out, stroking his cheek gently, shaking his head.

“No, Cas. You need to say it. Promise me.”

Cas looked deeply into his eyes. “I promise,” he said solemnly.

Dean closed his eyes briefly, feeling again that shiver of deep worry, the fear that he was corrupting something pure, something innocent. The visceral knowledge that he was unworthy of the being standing in front of him.

Cas’s gaze sharpened, and the fallen angel made a soft, anguished noise, a glint of something close to anger flashing in his eyes.

“Dean… I’m no angel. Remember? And even if I was, it wouldn’t matter. This is a sacred act. Every act of love is an act of worship.” He hesitated. “Besides, it is I who has fallen. I who am unworthy.”

Dean growled, reaching out and catching Cas’s chin in his hand.

“Don’t you _dare_ say that, Cas, or even think it! Those feathered assholes up in Heaven aren’t worth even this much of you.” Dean grabbed Cas’s hand, and held up his little finger meaningfully.

The former angel and the hunter stared defiantly at each other, neither willing to give ground, until the tension was finally too much and they came together, mouths hot and hard.

Quickly Dean gentled his touch, kissing Cas slowly, deeply, pouring all his love and desire into that one action. Slowly, languidly, he explored Cas’s mouth, as if there was nothing else to want, nothing else to need. He was struck yet again at how a kiss from Cas felt so different than a kiss from anyone else, the merest touch of his lips setting off a feeling like liquid lightning flowing through his veins, setting him aflame. Dean was at a loss to explain it, he didn’t know if it was because he was so desperately in love with the angel, or if it was something innate to Cas, some remnant of grace.

There had always been something about the angel that was intoxicating, compelling, _magnetic_. A pull that hadn’t been dimmed by his human form, a hypnotic inner light that had nothing to do with his divinity and everything to do with who Cas was deep inside. He turned heads wherever they went, and not because of his almost ethereal beauty, but because of that indefinable _something_ that made Dean long to put his own handprint on Cas, the way the angel had done to him, to proclaim to the world that Castiel, the former Angel of the Lord, was _his_.

Dean felt Cas curl his fingers in his shirt, melting against him with a complete and total trust, the contrast between the softness of his lips and the hard, lean lines of his body filling Dean with a lust so strong he thought he might die from it. He broke off the kiss, but didn’t move away, his forehead touching Cas’s, breathing his breath, hearing in it the ragged edge of desire. He kept his eyes closed, knowing if he opened them he’d be looking straight into piercing blue eyes; knowing he’d see a knowledge behind those eyes that no human possessed, and also the innocence that Dean desperately hoped he wasn’t about to damage irreparably.

“Dean,” Cas whispered softly.

“Yes?” Dean whispered back, his eyes still closed.

Dean felt Cas bring up a hand, and gently touch his cheek. He shivered involuntarily and felt the fallen angel tense beneath his hands.

“What’s wrong?” Cas asked, a note of uncertainty entering his voice. “We don’t have to… if you don’t want to…”

Dean couldn’t help it; the statement was so ridiculous that he did open his eyes, letting out an involuntary snort of laughter. Cas stared back at him, his body language still hesitant, an uncertain smile on his lips. Dean leaned forward slightly and pressed a gentle kiss to Cas’s mouth. The ex-angel closed his eyes, and Dean smiled to himself.

“Cas, believe me when I say there is nothing I want more.”

“Then what?” Cas asked.

Dean decided not to mention anything about how goddamn _terrified_ he was - that wouldn’t help anyone - so instead he went with an answer that was just as true.

“I just can’t believe this is really happening.”

They gazed at each other for a long time, something that defied description passing between them. Dean felt their connection to each other, already strong, grow even deeper, a bond that was as deep, as powerful as the handprint on his soul.

Without even really thinking he reached out and began undoing Cas’s tie, feeling the gaze of his angel boring holes in him as the silk slipped between his fingers. Eventually he managed to get the tie off, dropping it to the ground, and undoing the first button on Cas’s shirt, running his fingertips across the now-exposed triangle of skin.

As Cas shuddered under his touch Dean looked up quickly, making sure the newly-human angel was ok. He caught his breath, the look in Cas’s eyes was something he couldn’t put a name to, something almost alien, a depth of emotion that went beyond anything human, as if Cas’s long, long life had somehow given him a greater capacity to feel.

Dean bit his lip as he continued to undo Cas’s shirt, his fingers shaking so badly he tore the fabric, the last button coming off in his hands. He dropped it to the ground, uncaring, and finally, ever so gently pushed the shirt off Cas’s shoulders, his fingers trailing teasingly across his skin as the shirt slipped to the floor.

Dean caught his breath. Cas was _stunning_ , his body all smooth skin and lean, hard muscle, his taut abdomen, and the jut of a hipbone where his pants had been pulled askew, just begging to have Dean’s hands and mouth on it.

After a few seconds, during which he knew he was gaping like an idiot, Dean placed his hands firmly on Cas’s waist, knowing there was one more thing they needed to get out of the way before they went any further. Gently, oh so carefully, he maneuvered the fallen angel so he was facing away from him.

Although he put up no real resistance he could feel the tension in Cas’s body as he properly laid eyes on the ex-angel’s back for the first time, outside of a few glimpses when Cas was still learning the importance of wearing clothes. He steeled himself to look for what he knew was there, the one thing they’d been too afraid to ask their friend about.

 “Oh, _Cas_ ,” Dean breathed, anguished, running his hands gently down the two enormous scars on Cas’s shoulder blades. “Oh my poor angel.” He laid his head against Cas’s back, still running his hands soothingly across the raised scar tissue.

“Angel no more,” Cas whispered, his voice holding a slightly ragged edge, not desire this time, but grief, and an undercurrent of fear. Dean breathed out, his fingertips gently tracing the scar on the right side.

“Being mortal doesn’t change who you are, Cas. Or _what_ you are.”

 “But what _am_ I?” Cas asked, tears evident in the thickness of his voice. “Even I don’t know anymore.”

Dean opened his mouth to reply, but then closed it again, knowing what he said now was more important than perhaps any conversation he’d had with the angel before. He bit his lip, cursing himself to Hell and back. He was no good at this. Sam was the one who knew what to say in these situations, or more importantly, _how_ to say it.

Then Dean heard the tell-tale hitch of breath, felt the tension under his hands, and stopped letting his brain try to figure out what to say. This was a job for the heart.

 “The most beautiful, perfect creature in this entire fucked-up world,” he whispered eventually. “My best friend. The love of my life. The center of my universe.”

He heard Cas hiss in a shocked breath.

“Do you mean that?” he asked, and the hunter felt more than heard the tremble of uncertainty, as if Dean seeing his scars had brought back all the fallen angel’s fears and doubts, as if he was braced for rejection. Dean moved until they were standing face-to-face again, so he could look into his angel’s eyes, which were looking into him, _through_ him, in that unnerving way he sometimes had.

“Yes, Cas,” he said firmly. “I mean it. Right to the depths of my soul, with everything I am, I mean it.”

 

Cas wiped at his eyes, surprised and frustrated by the tears that had fallen, first when Dean had seen the hideous scars, the reminder of that day, of the loss of his magnificent wings, the symbol of his divinity, and then from Dean’s declaration of love. As an angel he’d never understood tears, why humans cried. He’d never understood that tears could mean different things, could mean grief, or frustration, or joy. Never understood that sometimes an emotion was so big, was so intense, that a mortal body couldn’t hold it in.

He looked up into Dean’s green eyes, and saw something there that he knew the hunter wouldn’t see if he looked in a mirror. Cas had never told the brothers that he still retained the ability to sense the immortal plane; he could still tell when the other angels were nearby, could still sometimes catch glimpses of things no mortal should be able to see, like the light of righteousness that burned inside Dean like a flame.

He’d felt the soul that burned behind those eyes. He knew the hunter better than he knew himself, the deep insecurity, the fierce love and loyalty, the strength, the passion, the pain. He’d seen it all in that moment as he’d held that precious, fragile soul in his hands, and had felt a feeling unlike anything he’d ever experienced before sweep over him. A feeling he now knew to be that most treasured and sacred of emotions, _love_.

And looking into Dean’s _so beloved_ green eyes now, he felt like he could almost see that soul again, felt like Dean had stripped himself bare for Cas’s examination, made himself vulnerable in a way that went against a lifetime of conditioning, of putting up barriers. And that, more than even the words, showed Cas the depth of Dean’s love, of his devotion.

He swallowed hard, and reached up to touch the hunter’s cheek, fighting for the right words, and not finding them. So he just said what he was thinking, and silently willed Dean to understand.

“I have lived a hundred thousand lifetimes, but I was never alive until the day I saw you in Perdition. I never knew. I never _knew_ it could be like this. Never knew feelings like this _existed_. Heaven is nothing, _nothing_ compared to being with you.”

Dean blinked, and a range of emotions flashed across his face, emotions Cas could now mostly read and interpret. He saw the love, the desire, the fear of hurting him, the wonder of discovery, of connection. And other things, things he was still too new to mortality to understand.

He leaned over and gently pressed his lips to the hunter’s own, and felt Dean sigh against them, as if letting go of some terrible burden. And suddenly, Dean was in control. Gone was the trembling uncertainty, and Cas felt his body react in a visceral, atavistic way. The time for overthinking was over, it was time for instinct to take hold.

 

Dean ran his tongue lightly across Cas’s lips, and he instinctively parted them under his touch. The feeling of Dean’s tongue gently caressing and exploring his mouth was a sensation that went straight through Cas, and he felt a tension deep inside, something he’d felt before, but so much stronger now. He pushed himself against Dean, trying to get as close as possible, the feeling of the hunter’s shirt rubbing against his bare skin suddenly maddening; how _dare_ there be anything, even thin cloth, separating them?

Then Dean’s arms were around him, and Cas found he was embracing the hunter in return, with no memory of actually moving his arms. He fisted his hands in the back of Dean’s shirt, at once trying to push Dean closer, and at the same time trying to ruck the shirt up so he could feel the skin underneath, something he suddenly desperately needed to do. Dean moaned against his mouth, and pushed his hips forward. Cas felt the tension in his body ratchet up to almost unbearable levels, and he growled deep in his throat, pushing his mouth even harder against Dean’s, trying to stop the hunter from being gentle, wanting Dean to take everything from him, to strip him bare and own him, to show him everything about how humans loved each other.

Eventually Cas had to break off the kiss, gasping for breath, and as he did so Dean stepped back and grabbed the bottom of his shirt, ripping it over his head in a smooth, practised motion. Cas felt his jaw drop in shock, even though he’d seen Dean without a shirt many times before there was something about the intimacy and immediacy of this moment, of the hunter standing there with his skin exposed to Cas; the hard muscle beneath the battle-scarred skin drawing his eyes like a magnet. As Dean chuckled, a low, knowing sound, Cas’s eyes were drawn back up to the hunter’s face, to green eyes that were suddenly dark, and almost dangerous.

“Like what you see, Cas?” Dean asked, his voice amused, but his expression intent.

Cas just nodded dumbly, and reached out a hesitant hand, trailing it gently across the exposed flesh in front of him, fascinated by the goosebumps that followed in the wake of his fingers, and the way Dean sucked in a short, sharp breath. Cas found he loved the way he could make Dean react, found he wanted to drag every sound he could from the man in front of him. Experimentally he drifted his fingers across the anti-possession tattoo, then up to the handprint on Dean’s shoulder, the outward symbol of their profound bond.

Dean bit his lip, his body tensing under Cas’s questing fingers, and the ex-angel felt his own body tighten in response; without being able to push down the primal urges of this mortal form he found he was now almost painfully aroused. He let his fingers quest up to those lips, brushing across them, shuddering as they parted under his touch. Dean caught his fingers lightly with his teeth, swiping them gently with his tongue before letting go.

Cas shuddered again, but refused to be distracted, tracing the features of Dean’s face with his now-wet fingers, mapping the strong line of his jaw, and drifting up to curiously trace his ear. Dean stayed passive throughout this examination, and Cas was grateful. He needed this, there was something about the sensation of touch, of the feeling of bare skin under his hands, that was so much more raw and primal here in the mortal plane, that grounded him. That made this moment so real. So _true_.

 Eventually he let his eyes drift lower, to see an answering bulge in Dean’s pants, and gradually allowed his fingers to follow the path of his eyes, drifting lower, across the waistband, and lower still.

“Cas,” Dean hissed, his hands clenched by his sides, biting his lip, staring at him with an almost burning intensity. Cas drew in a sharp breath of his own, and made to caress Dean through his pants again, but the hunter caught his hand. He looked up enquiringly.

“Am I doing it wrong?” he asked, suddenly worried. Despite his earlier protestations that he knew how this ritual went, he was suddenly aware of the huge gulf of experience between himself and the hunter.

“No, Cas,” Dean said, with a laugh that was gentle amusement, no mockery in his tone. “You’re doing fine. More than fine… perfectly. But if you keep that up I’m not going to last long enough to even get undressed.”

Cas bit his lip, not really sure what the hunter meant, but nodding anyway.

“Speaking of,” Dean whispered, stepping close again. Cas leaned in for a kiss, only to find Dean kneeling down instead. Cas whimpered, although he had no idea why, only knowing instinctively that something was about to happen that would change things between them irrevocably.

Dean looked up at him then, his green, now almost-black, eyes reflecting Cas’s stunned face back at him. It was a position of supplication, of surrender, and Cas found himself moved by it, by the reminder that this man had once trusted him with his life, with his very soul, had once prayed to him night after night. Had believed in him when no one else would. Had _loved_ him. Still loved him, in spite of everything.

Without thinking he reached out a hand and ran it through Dean’s hair, a caress, and a benediction.

Still staring up at him, Dean leaned forward and nuzzled his by-now aching erection through the dress pants Cas had worn to their date, as a reminder of Before. And if Cas thought that he’d been feeling desperate earlier, it was nothing, _nothing_ compared to this new feeling.

Then Dean opened his mouth, sucking at him through the cloth, ever so gently grazing his teeth along his length, and Cas felt his desperation build until it was too much, causing a moan to burst from deep in his throat, an animalistic sound that almost shocked him with its power.

Instead of running his fingers through Dean’s hair, this time he gripped that hair in his hands, unable to vocalize what he wanted, what he _needed_ , instead trying to impart that desperation through the grasping of his fingers.

Dean grinned, and slowly, so, so slowly undid his belt, grabbing the waistband of Cas’s pants and pulling them down. Then he resumed his ministrations, but this time with no barrier between them. Cas let out a gasp of shock, he couldn’t help it. The feeling of Dean’s mouth, the hot, wet heat was almost too much to bear.

“ _Dean!_ ” he hissed.

The hunter pulled back and looked up at him, in concern this time, and Cas almost cried aloud in frustration.

 “Don’t stop!” he gasped, and felt, more than saw, Dean grin the mischievous smile that was as now familiar to Cas as his own newly-human body.

Dean leaned forward again, this time just taking the tip of Cas’s erection into his mouth, suckling gently, and laving it with his tongue.

“ _Dean!_ ” Cas practically howled. How could something feel like this? How could it be _so much_ and yet _not enough?!_

“Soon, sweetheart, soon. I promise,” Dean whispered, the feeling of his hot breath causing Cas to twitch involuntarily. “Just hold on.”

This time Dean lost all the teasing touches, now he was working Cas’s body as if he could bring them together, make them one by the simple movement of his mouth and hands. A few seconds later Cas felt a feeling he couldn’t describe pooling low in his belly, a feeling so intense he wondered if maybe this was what dying felt like, an inevitable pull towards something too strong to overcome.

A soft noise escaped his throat involuntarily, and Cas saw Dean’s eyes narrow. With one hand Dean reached up and grabbed Cas’s right hand, twining their fingers together, squeezing reassuringly. With his other hand he grabbed Cas by the hip, holding him still, as he hollowed his cheeks and hummed low in his throat. As he did that, Cas felt his whole world narrow to one thing, Dean’s green eyes, and a pleasure so white-hot and intense it was almost pain. He tried to cry out, but his breath caught in his throat; the feeling was so powerful his mind went deliciously blank for a second, or an eternity, it was hard to tell.

 

Dean stared up into the blue eyes that gazed down at him, glazed with passion, the ex-angel’s fingers holding his own in a vice-like grip, and watched Cas come apart under his touch. He’d known from the very first moment that neither he, nor Cas, had a hope of lasting long enough to get to the bed; there was too much pent-up longing, the wait had been too long. And so all his long-held plans went out the window, and he just let himself do whatever felt right, whatever would bring Cas the most pleasure.

He wiped his mouth carefully as he sat back, watching Cas as he came down from his orgasmic high, and had to dig the nails of his free hand into his thigh in an effort to stop himself from following Cas over the edge. After all, he hadn’t even gotten _undressed_ yet.

“Fuck, Cas!” he breathed. “That was so _fucking_ hot. Watching you…” Dean groaned aloud, digging his nails in even further. Cold showers. Cold showers, and demons. Those were the things to think about. Not how Cas looked with his eyes blazing with passion, the bliss on his face…

And then Cas wobbled on his feet.

Dean forgot everything else, jumping up like he’d been shot and scooping the ex-angel up into his arms, laying him carefully on the bed. Cas looked at him with a shell-shocked expression as Dean lay down beside him, his hand lying comfortingly on Cas’s stomach, which was still quivering with the afterthroes of passion.

Cas turned his head to face him completely, and Dean smiled.

“How are you feeling, love?”

“That,” Cas said, licking his lips, an action that almost caused Dean’s eyes to roll back in his head, his aching cock throbbing with the desperate need for release. “That was…” Cas continued, before stopping, obviously unable to find an adequate word.

Dean preened a little, he’d done everything to Cas that he liked done to himself, and reckoned he probably hadn’t done a bad job for his first time. Cas certainly seemed happy with his performance, although Dean found he was grateful the ex-angel had no other experiences to compare it to.

Cas gave up the fight to find the word he wanted, leaning across to kiss him instead. Dean kissed back, feeling a little weird kissing Cas with the taste of the fallen angel still on his lips, but Cas didn’t seem to care. The scent of his angel surrounded him, the scent of a storm-tossed ocean, something that made Dean’s head spin with lust and longing, until he had to break off the kiss, gasping for breath. Cas smiled a small, shy smile, and Dean got lost, as he so often did, in those infinitely deep, infinitely blue eyes.

After a few more minutes of just lying there, looking into each other’s eyes but not saying anything, Cas pushed at his shoulder, and Dean rolled willingly onto his back, allowing the ex-angel complete access to his body, to do with it whatever he wanted.

Cas stared down at Dean, seemingly lost in thought, and Dean put aside his own need long enough to reach up a hand, and brush Cas’s slightly longer-than-usual hair away from his face, smiling at the soft feel of it in his hands. Cas had obviously finally figured out the shampoo.

“I understand now,” Cas said eventually.

“Understand what, sweetheart?” Dean asked, his fingers trailing teasingly down Cas’s neck and shoulder.

“Why humans spend so much time copulating,” Cas replied, and Dean snorted with laughter.

“What did I say?” Cas asked, perplexed.

“Nothing, Cas. Never mind. I’m just happy, that’s all.”

“Me too,” Cas said, with a sigh of contentment, making idle circles on Dean’s chest with his hand. Dean had to forcibly will himself not to touch himself, even a simple caress like that was enough to drive him almost insane with lust. But he wasn’t going to rush, and he _certainly_ wasn’t going to interrupt Cas when he was opening up to him. More and more often Cas was playing his cards very close to his chest, a habit Dean feared the ex-angel had learned from him.

“What was it like before?” Cas asked, after another contemplative moment, an edge creeping into his voice.

“Before?” Dean asked stupidly, his brain absolutely not paying attention to the tone of the question, which should have had him on high alert straight away.

“With the others,” Cas said, with a frown. “Before me.”

Dean had learned very early on that Cas had a possessive streak as wide as Sam was tall. At first he hadn’t known what to make of it, but then he’d brought Cas’s jealousy up with his brother, who had just laughed.

“And how would you feel about Cas’s exes, if he had any?” he’d asked. Dean had thought about Cas being with someone else, and it had made his blood burn with a rage so white-hot his vision had turned black at the edges.

Dean no longer questioned Cas’s jealousy.

Dean levered himself up onto an elbow, and looked Cas straight in his eyes, grabbing one of his hands.

“Believe me, Cas,” he said firmly, “there has never been anyone like you.”

Cas seemed unconvinced, so Dean tightened his fingers a little more. “Cas… there’s a big difference between sex and love. Yes, I’ve had sex plenty of times before. But I’ve never loved. Not the way I love you.”

Cas nodded, seeming comforted by this statement. They were silent for another moment, another moment of just looking at each other, taking the moment in. And Dean was struck by the absolute truth of his earlier statement.

There had never been, or would ever be, anyone like Cas.

Cas started trailing his fingers across Dean’s chest again, startling him out of his thoughts, and the hunter bit back another groan… just. Cas’s gaze sharpened, and he finally seemed to notice the desperate state Dean was in. Curiously, Cas drifted his hand back down to the bulge in Dean’s pants. This time the hunter couldn’t hold back the moan, and Cas smiled, a new expression Dean hadn’t seen before, something almost playful. Teasingly, Cas rubbed his hand along the length of Dean’s erection, squeezing gently, looking back up at Dean for approval.

“Oh, fuck, _Cas!_ ” Dean hissed, fisting his hands in the sheets, his legs quivering. Cas tilted his head to the side, that oh-so-familiar gesture Dean’s only warning that the ex-angel’s mood was changing. Without any more hesitation Cas had Dean's pants undone, finally freeing him from the constraints of his clothing, so fast that the hunter briefly forgot Cas had lost his mojo.

As Cas’s hand came into contact with Dean’s rock-hard cock for the first time, Dean decided that all the sex he’d ever had, and it had been a _lot_ , didn’t compare at all to the vision, or feeling, of Cas long, elegant fingers touching him where he most needed to be touched.

“Harder, Cas,” Dean finally managed to gasp, and Cas narrowed his eyes in concentration, his tongue poking out slightly, an expression so adorable Dean’s heart would have exploded, if his body had allowed him to feel anything except _un-fucking-believable_ pleasure.

Cas gripped him clumsily, his strokes short, and stuttering, and inexperienced, and yet Dean couldn’t remember ever feeling like this with anyone else. With the tiny corner of his brain that was still working he wondered if he felt this way with a simple handjob how he was going to manage if Cas decided to put his other new-found knowledge to work.

Just as he thought that, with another curious head-tilt, Cas leaned down and licked a stripe up his length.

Dean felt a deep, animalistic noise fighting to claw its way up his throat and clenched his teeth, pushing the sound down. Now was not the time to distract the fallen angel from his task.

Cas looked back at Dean for further confirmation that he was doing the right thing, but Dean’s teeth were still tightly clenched, so Cas frowned, and wrapped his fingers back around Dean’s cock, his strokes more confident, his eyes blazing with something Dean was too far gone to identify. He tried to hang on, after all, he was no teenager, he _was not_ going to come after barely being touched.

He looked at Cas’s face again, at those intense, glacial-blue eyes.

Yes, he was.

 “Cas,” Dean only had time to stutter before he came so hard he almost blacked out.

 

As Dean gently, carefully wiped Cas’s hands, and his own stomach, clean of the evidence of their activities, the ex-angel replayed the scene over and over again in his mind, burning it into his memory. The expression on Dean’s face, the feeling of bringing such bliss to the one he loved above all others, just thinking about it made a now-familiar tension begin to spread through his body. Surely nothing could compare to that feeling, could it?

“We’ve hardly even started yet, Cas,” Dean said with a chuckle, and Cas blushed, realizing he’d voiced the thought out loud.

Cas shook his head mutely, he couldn’t imagine anything feeling more intense than what he’d been feeling this last hour. Dean just grinned, and lay down, stretching out an arm to him in invitation, so reminiscent of the first night Cas had been back at the bunker, before he’d known exactly _why_ he needed the hunter so badly, that he felt more unwelcome tears sting behind his eyes. Dean’s expression softened into something rueful, and Cas knew, in a way he wouldn’t have a few weeks ago, that Dean was remembering the same thing.

As he had on that first night Cas lay his head on Dean’s chest, and felt the hunter’s strong, comforting arms come around him, felt, again, that sense of security, of safety, made even more profound by the lack of anything, even clothing, separating them.

He heard Dean say something, but couldn’t make it out, his mind drifting inevitably into a deep, and finally dreamless, sleep.

* * *

 Dean held his sleeping angel, feeling the pull of sleep himself, but fighting it, not wanting to miss even a second of this, a moment so perfect he couldn’t believe it was real. What had Cas said about not being able to tell the difference between dreams and reality?

Dean shifted so his cheek was resting on Cas’s hair, turning his head slightly to place the kiss there that he’d held back that first night, what seemed a lifetime ago now. His life before Cas’s return to the bunker now seemed unreal, like it was lived by someone else. How had he ever survived without this, without Cas in his arms?

Dean ran his hand gently across Cas’s arm where it was slung across his stomach, marveling at feel of it under his hands, at the sensation of Cas’s stubble scratching his chest, and the feeling of the lean, hard body pressed up against his own. His worries that he wouldn’t know what to do, how to please Cas, seemed silly in retrospect now. Cas’s meat suit, as pleasing as it was, was not what Dean was worshiping with his body, it was Cas himself. It didn’t matter what human body the ex-angel wore, Dean’s heart and soul craved the being inside it, and an instinct as primal and ancient as time itself would take it from there.

 

After about an hour of just basking in the glow of having his angel there, in his arms, Dean quietly picked up his phone to check that Sam had gotten his message, and wasn’t going to show up and hear anything that would make both of them have to avoid eye contact for the next month.

He smirked when he saw Sam’s reply; about fifty iterations of the emoji with its hands to its face, looking shocked.

 _Bitch,_ Dean wrote back with a grin.

 _Jerk,_ came back the immediate reply.

_Don’t think I was too busy to notice you stole my wallet. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do._

Sam sent back a photo of him flipping off the camera while drinking what looked like very, _very_ expensive champagne straight out of the bottle. Dean grinned, about to write a cutting reply when Cas stirred against him. Dean immediately dropped the phone in the drawer of his bedside table, his brother was the last person he wanted to think about with what he suspected they were going to spend the rest of the night doing.

Cas looked up him sleepily as Dean turned on the lamp, and his heart cramped almost painfully at the sight of his angel’s sleepy, trusting face, his hair rumpled, his eyes half hooded from sleep. He _still_ couldn’t believe this was real. It was too perfect, too pure.

“Is everything ok? I heard the phone,” Cas asked, his voice rough with sleep.

“Fine,” Dean replied, with a reassuring smile. “I was just checking on Sam, he’s given himself a little holiday. With my money.”

“Oh, good,” Cas murmured. “Sam needs a holiday. He’s been so busy.”

Dean frowned. “What do you mean, Cas? Busy with what?”

“Moving his stuff to the next level down,” Cas replied with a yawn. “He said he found a nicer bedroom down there. He also said it was quieter down there, but I didn’t really understand that. It’s quiet in the bunker already, we’re underground.”

Dean scrubbed his hands across his face, half grateful, half embarrassed. “I’m gonna have to get that boy a puppy or something.”

“A puppy?” Cas asked, perking up. “I love puppies! We should definitely get one for Sam.” Then he frowned. “Why don’t you have pets, Dean? Lots of people on tv have them.”

“Sam always wanted a dog,” Dean said, running his hand thoughtfully up and down Cas’s spine, “but I always said it was too impractical. We were always on the move, never settling in any one place. It broke his heart the day we had to leave behind the dog he rescued when we were in school. I couldn’t put him through that again.”

Cas looked sad. “Sam feels so deeply. I never realized, when I was an angel. All I saw was the demon blood in him. It wasn’t until after he sacrificed himself that I truly realized how strong he was, how kind, and how brave.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, with a smile, “He is that. And more.”

Cas lay his head back down on Dean’s chest, and was silent so long the hunter thought maybe he’d gone back to sleep, but then he shifted against Dean, and something in his breathing alerted the hunter that the ex-angel was in fact awake, alert, and, by the feel of it, definitely aroused.

“Come here, baby,” Dean murmured, stroking Cas’s hair. Cas turned his face up to him and smiled shyly, his expression almost taking Dean’s breath away, and definitely making his body tighten with interest.

“Come on,” he coaxed. “Kiss me, Cas.”

Cas smiled even wider, a smile of such open, pure joy Dean felt his lips turn upward in an answering grin. Then his arms were around the fallen angel, his lips pressed to Cas’s, the ex-angel’s tongue tangling with Dean’s own, with no prompting from the hunter. This was Cas as he had been as an angel, in control, all sense of the hesitation and fear that had dogged his change in status gone. That ozone scent that was particular only to Cas filled the air, and Dean found himself getting almost drunk off it, and off Cas himself.

The kiss was slow, Cas seemed determined to explore every inch of Dean’s mouth, to figure out what felt best, what got the best reactions. Dean was happy to be Cas’s experimental subject, and gave himself over totally to the kiss, not even thinking about what might come next. That is until Cas shifted, and his rock-hard erection rubbed up against Dean’s own, and they both let out a moan of longing, breaking apart.

Dean looked up into Cas’s cerulean eyes, dark with desire, and ran a thumb across his kiss-swollen lips. Cas grabbed the thumb in his mouth, licking it before letting go, eliciting a stunned gasp from the hunter.

“Fast learner,” Dean grumbled, and Cas grinned, shifting against Dean again, experimentally.

Dean growled, grabbing Cas and rolling them so he was now the one on top, staring down into startled blue eyes.

“Not so fast, Cas,” Dean whispered. “We’re going to take this slowly.”

Cas just nodded, breathing hard. Dean leaned down, slowly, brushing his lips from the corner of Cas’s mouth, down his neck, sucking at the junction of his shoulder, hard enough to leave a mark. He felt Cas squirm under his hands as Dean grazed his teeth across the sensitive flesh, then licked a stripe down his chest, reveling in the taste of his hot, salty skin, until he reached a hard nipple. With a quick glance up at the ex-angel to make sure he was still ok, Dean enfolded the hard nub in his mouth, sucking gently, and flicking it with his tongue, rolling the other between thumb and forefinger.

Dean thought he’d been turned on before, but the sound that Cas made under his touch was so filled with lust and longing Dean felt his already hard cock get absolutely granite-hard, and briefly wondered if he’d be able to take it as slow as needed to. Then he shook his head. Of course he could, this was Cas. He would go as slow as the ex-angel needed him to, even if it killed him. Which, as Cas let out another husky moan of longing, Dean thought it very well might.

With that thought in mind he reached over into the drawer beside the bed, and pulled out a bottle of lube, knowing that this, this was the moment he really _was_ going to lean on the research of the past few weeks.

Cas watched him with wide, glazed eyes as Dean poured some of the lube into his hand, spreading it across his fingers. Dean smiled and ran his other hand gently down Cas’s chest.

“I’m going to need you to relax for me, angel. Do you think you can do that?”

Cas nodded, his eyes still glazed, and Dean leaned down, kissing him.

“I’m going to be as gentle as I can, but I’m not going to lie. It’s going to feel weird. You have to tell me if I hurt you, ok?”

“Dean?”

“Yes, Cas?”

“Just _get on with it!_ ”

Dean grinned, positioning himself and Cas more comfortably, and reaching a hand down between his legs. As he slid his finger slowly, oh so gently inside Cas, his other hand gently caressing the ex-angel’s hard length, he leaned down to kiss his pink, breathlessly-parted lips, hoping desperately that he was doing it right. He couldn’t bear it if he hurt Cas.

After a few moments, trying to remember what he was meant to be doing, Dean crooked a finger, and Cas let out a gasp of surprise, his jaw dropping in shock. Dean let out a breath, relieved. He’d got something right, at least. 

           

Cas felt Dean’s fingertips tremble slightly as they entered him. A feeling unlike anything he had felt so far, a feeling too strong to describe, shot through him at the touch of the hunter’s hands, at the gentle, almost worshipful way Dean caressed his skin. He felt something inside him stir at the care and obvious love behind that touch, as if he were feeling Dean’s soul in his hands all over again, as if by being so close, by just that tiny contact, they were speaking to each other in a language beyond words.

Dean had been right, it did feel weird, but then the hunter did something unexpected with his finger and Cas felt a jolt shoot through him, right to his aching cock. He was already completely strung out, and instinctively started to grasp at Dean, to try and pull him closer, to do something, _anything_. To be closer than close, to somehow meld together. Desperately he heard himself whine in the back of his throat.

“Dean,” he hissed, pleading with his eyes. But Dean was steadfast.

“Shh, Cas. It’s ok, baby. I’ve got you. But you have to wait, we can’t rush this. I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered.

“I don’t care!” Cas gritted out through his teeth, desperately thrusting against Dean’s hand. But Dean, who had never before hesitated to give Cas whatever he needed, was insisting on being stubborn, holding him down ruthlessly. Eventually Cas felt another finger slide in beside the first one, but it wasn’t enough, wasn’t what he wanted, what he _needed_.

Dean kissed him again, and Cas calmed under his touch, feeling all of Dean’s love, all of his fear of hurting him in that one action.

After what seemed an absolutely interminable amount of time Dean slid a third finger into him, and Cas finally gained enough control of himself to reach down, to touch Dean the way that had brought him such bliss last time. Dean’s eyes darkened, and he gritted his teeth, letting his breath out in a hiss.

“Angel, please,” he said, breathing raggedly. “Stop. I won’t be able to hold on if you do that.”

Cas frowned petulantly, wriggling against Dean’s restraining hand.

“I want,” he muttered, again not sure how to phrase what he wanted to say.

“What, sweetheart?” Dean murmured, a glint in his eyes that was almost predatory, something that made Cas’s already-racing heart speed up a thousandfold.

“I want,” Cas said again, almost as a growl.

“What, Cas?” Dean asked again, stilling his hands, gazing at him with an intensity that seared Cas to his very core. “ _What_ do you want, Cas? Say it.”

 “I want _you!_ ”

Those words seemed to finally break the last of Dean’s resistance, and he finally withdrew his fingers, positioning himself between Cas’s legs, his green eyes boring holes into him, his musky, earthy scent surrounding him. With a practiced motion Dean poured some more of the gel-type substance onto his hand, stroking his own length sharply, then Cas’s, more gently.

“Are you _sure?_ ” Dean asked, one final time, although it was clear to Cas that the hunter was only just barely hanging onto the last threads of composure.

“I’ve never been surer of anything,” he said, trying to color his voice with the truth of that statement, and with all the passion, desire and _love_ coursing through his veins.

With that Dean _finally_ , oh so slowly entered him, and Cas was swept away on a tide of desire so strong he thought he might die from it. It wasn’t just the feeling of Dean inside him, as close as two people could get, or the feeling of Dean’s hand around him, pumping in time to their rhythm, it was the feeling of finally, at long last, being whole. Of performing this most sacred of acts with the one he loved with every atom of his body, with every beat of his now-human heart.

 

Dean looked down, at the place where they ceased to be two halves, and became one whole, at the sight of Cas laid out below him, wanton, disheveled, his hair mussed, his lips swollen from kissing, the mark Dean had left on his neck just starting to darken. It was far and away the hottest thing Dean had ever seen, and yet, despite all his fears of corrupting the angel, despite all his worries, the eyes that looked back at him were the same, eyes that showed a love as pure and unconditional as anything Dean had ever experienced.

“Dean,” Cas whispered, and the ex-angel’s husky, sandpaper voice thrilled through Dean like lightning, like fire, like the inferno of hell itself. He shuddered, the intensity of the feeling almost too much. How was Cas was dealing with this much intimacy when Dean could hardly handle it?

As if reading his thoughts Cas reached up his elegant, long-fingered hand to cup his cheek and the hunter turned his head to kiss the angel’s palm, feeling the long-held words bubbling up inside, unable, and unwilling, to hold them back any longer.

 

Cas wondered if it was meant to feel like this, a happiness so sharp it was almost pain, a love so deep it was like being torn open from the inside out, a physical pleasure that was just the right side of unbearable. Is this what it was like for them, _all the time?_ How did they handle it? It was too much, far too much… and he _never wanted it to stop!_

Cas stared up into the green eyes above him, using them as an anchor as his thoughts scattered and his body moved without any input from its owner, his physical form knowing what it was doing even if his mind was nothing more than a puddle of messy human emotions.

The expression on Dean’s face was something Cas knew he would remember for the rest of his life, filled with a tenderness and a love so deep it eclipsed anything he’d ever seen in Heaven, the supposed birthplace of love. He reached up a hand to touch that beloved face, to burn the memory not just into his mind, but into his hands, into the very nerve endings themselves. To take this man, this hunter who’d risen from the fires of Perdition itself, and become a part of him. To stop being Castiel the Fallen Angel and become just Cas, Dean’s friend. His lover. His _soulmate._

All these thoughts passed through Cas’s mind in an instant as Dean moved slowly, far too slowly above him, praise and endearments tumbling from his lips.

“That’s it Cas, sweetheart, I love you so much, so _fucking_ much it nearly kills me just to look at you! You’re so beautiful, Castiel, my love, my perfect, precious angel. You’re everything, _everything_ to me.”

Cas felt his breath catch in his chest, as something that looked suspiciously like a tear glinted behind Dean’s eyes.

“Castiel, I love you. I love you. I love you. _I love you!_ ”

At those words Cas felt his heart almost explode, the emotion and the physical sensations melding into one, a feeling so huge it felt like love was bursting from every pore, the way his grace had in the old days. Desperately he grabbed at Dean’s hips, trying to pull him closer, trying to make him speed up, an urgency building in his body, and in his heart. And from out of that desperation he felt words tumbling from his own lips, too far gone, too strung out to translate to them to English, or even Latin like last time.

 

Dean heard the ancient language coming from Cas, and translated as best he could in his state, which wasn’t very well, since the sight of Cas's adored blue eyes boring holes in him, the feel of being finally inside his beloved angel, was driving him nearly to the edge of sanity.

In the way of the language of the Angels it was oddly formal, but the ritualistic nature of the words made Dean feel like something was happening between them more profound, more powerful than a simple declaration of love.

Dean bit his cheek, slowing his movements, trying to think through the haze of desire, to concentrate on this moment. His Enochian wasn’t nearly as good as he’d pretended, sometimes he could only extrapolate Cas’s meaning from context, but it was enough. More than enough.

 “Dean, Elasa Bolape En Moz, En Melpirgi, En Mononusa Adarepanu,” Cas whispered intently, seemingly unaware that he was speaking his native language.

_Dean, you are my joy, my life, my heart._

Dean caught his breath, but Cas wasn’t finished.

“Ol Barinu Ofekufal Elasa,”

_I have raised… elevated?... you,_

“Ta Elasa Ofekufa Ol Ta Ol As Adrpan"

_as you elevated me when I was cast down._

“Oi Basgim Dlagare Ol Ge Akarinu Ta Ol Bolape, Adagita Elasa, Lap Oi Oanio Od Ioiad Capmiali.”

_This day I give myself, unworthy as I am, to you, for this moment, and forever after._

 

Those words tore through Dean, shattering him apart and putting him back together in a new formation, all his doubts, all his lingering fears, blown away in that instant. Those words, which felt like they’d somehow been engraved on his very soul, brought him right to the edge and he knew he couldn’t hold on much longer.

“Dean,” Cas whispered pleadingly.

With no more hesitation Dean sped up the movement of his body and his hand, regaining the momentum he’d lost during Cas’s declaration of love, seeing Cas hovering on the brink of coming undone. It was time.

 “Let it go, Castiel, my love,” Dean whispered huskily, placing a gentle kiss on his mouth. “I’m here. I’ll always be here. Now come for me, angel. Let me see you. _Come for me, Castiel!”_

And, in a blaze of glory as bright as anything ever seen in Heaven, Castiel did.

* * *

**Epilogue:**

Dean’s hand left Cas’s knee as he threw himself across the table, snatching at the last slice of pizza, which Sam held teasingly just out of his reach.

A small ‘Yip!’ came from the direction of Sam’s lap, and, distracted, he looked down at the now-awake puppy, allowing Dean that extra second he needed to snatch the pizza.

“Hey!” Sam exclaimed, laughing. “No fair! You had the last slice last time.”

“I’m just saving you from getting fat, Sam,” Dean said, eyeing the pizza with an expression Cas had previously only seen in their bedroom. “You’ll thank me for it one day.”

As Dean made to start eating the pizza a tiny growl echoed around the room, and everyone stopped to look at the newest member of the Winchester clan.

 

Cas had been instantly smitten with every dog in the pound, their cold noses, their soft fur, their pleading eyes. He’d begged Dean to let him take all of them, but Dean had been firm. Then he’d asked the staff if there were any dogs due to be ‘put down.’

Cas had worked out what that meant from context, and had briefly explained to Dean his desire to find whoever had abandoned the dogs and put THEM down instead. Dean had given him that sideways glance that said ‘I agree with you, but you can’t say that sort of thing out loud.’

Cas got that look from the brothers a lot.

When they’d entered the last pen all the dogs inside had rushed to greet them, but one had been a bit slower to do so. Even with his leg in a splint the tiny husky puppy had gamboled bravely towards them, all big paws, mismatched blue and brown eyes, and fluffy gray and white fur. When he’d almost reached them the puppy had fallen flat on his face, jumping up again awkwardly and running forward as if nothing had happened, barrelling through the much bigger dogs in order to leap into Cas’s waiting arms.

Cas may or may not have squealed in delight. He chose not to remember that part.

“Whoa, slow down, Little Wolf!” Dean had laughed as the puppy had enthusiastically licked Cas’s face, and the deal was sealed.

 

“Wolf!” Dean yelled now, leaping after the ball of fluff which had leapt from Sam’s lap and stolen the slice of pizza, an impressive feat considering it was almost as big as he was. “What the hell?!”

“His name is His Royal Majesty KING Wolf the First,” Sam sniffed primly. “And he doesn’t appreciate your tone.”

“He’ll appreciate less than that when I get hold of him!” Dean grumbled, running after the limping puppy… but always allowing him to stay a few steps ahead.

Cas stopped watching the action and started watching the brothers instead; _really_ watching them. Seeing the love and pride and happiness blaze from Sam as his brother chased his beloved puppy dog across the floor. Seeing the mischief and laughter and deep, deep compassion in Dean as he finally scooped the tiring puppy up and scratched him behind the ears.

And, for the first time, didn’t miss what he’d lost. What he’d gained was so much more.

A home.

And a family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and for sticking with me as a small fic I put up for a bit of fun grew into this long, involved story. I hope this chapter was worth the wait! I appreciate you guys more than you’ll ever know. Your kudos and comments make my heart happy!  
> P.S. Human Cas learning how to do Human Things is my new favorite thing to write about, so I have quite a few more human lessons to put up at some point. If you’d like me to write about Cas learning something specific let me know!


	5. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again my lovely, wonderful, fantastic, totally awesome readers! A head's up, this isn’t a true chapter (more of a snippet), I liked the way this story ended. Instead it's the fulfillment of a request from a friend for a Cas and Dean ‘holiday special.’ I wanted to write it before Christmas, but, obviously, that didn’t happen! However, I finally had a day off, so I hope you enjoy it, even though it’s short, and very, very late!!

**Epilogue (Or, Cas learns about holidays)**

Dean heard the bunker door open and looked up, immediately alarmed when he saw Sam staggering through the entryway. His brother looked like Lucifer had just kicked his ass from one side of Hell to the other.

“Sam? Are you ok?!” he yelped, jumping quickly out of his chair. He looked more closely at his brother’s bedraggled form. “What the…you’re pale! And shaking! What the _hell_ happened out there?!”

Sam shook his head and held up a hand, continuing on his way to the stairs without stopping to talk.

“Ask Cas,” he threw over his shoulder, before rounding the corner and disappearing from sight.

Dean turned his attention to the very sheepish-looking former angel who had slunk in the door after his brother.

“Well?” he asked, gently.

Cas shook his head, mumbling something incoherent.

“What?” Dean asked, more sharply this time, increasingly concerned and confused.

“I said, _not yet_!” Cas huffed and, before Dean could say anything else, turned on his heel and stormed off down the stairs after Sam.

“What’d I do?!” Dean asked helplessly to the now-empty room. He looked at his beer, but it didn’t have any answers. He drank it anyway.

 

Sam slammed the door shut behind him and face-planted diagonally onto his bed, going immediately to sleep. Much, much later he finally awoke to a persistent knocking on his door, which, from the agitated whispers of _‘Sam!_ ’ that accompanied it, had probably been going on for quite some time.

“Come in,” he croaked, turning his head just far enough for his bleary eyes to see the door.

“Sam?” Cas asked tentatively, poking his head around the door. Sam noted with trepidation that his friend looked unusually bedraggled and wild-eyed. He managed a grunt, which the former angel obviously took as permission, padding quietly into the room and settling himself on the edge of the bed.

“Do you need help?” Sam mumbled, no longer able to see Cas’s face from his prone position, but completely unable to muster the energy required to move.

“No,” Cas replied proudly. “I’ve done it. I waited until he was asleep, like you said.”

“Ok, so what’s up then?”

“Up where?”

Sam grinned, finally rolling onto his back so he could look at his friend properly. “I mean, what’s wrong? Why do you need me?”

“Oh… I just wanted you to come and see,” Cas said with a small, shy smile.

Sam couldn’t help smiling back, even though he could easily have slept for another millennium. Or two.

“I’m sure it’s perfect Cas, but yes, I’ll definitely come and see. Only, you might have to help me up first.”

 

“Oh, Cas!” Sam breathed in awe as he crested the stairs. Cas beamed, obviously (and justifiably) proud of his efforts.

“Do you think Dean will like it?” he asked anxiously.

Sam stared at the ex-angel in surprise, momentarily lost for words.

“Seriously, Cas? No, I don’t think he'll like it. I think Dean will _love_ it!”

 

Dean opened his green eyes, and looked straight into piercing blue ones that were staring at him from less than an inch away.

“Gah!” he managed, before the eyes disappeared and a hand grabbed his arm, tugging at him until he fell out of the bed.

“Wha?!” he spluttered, only just managing not to completely freak out, and also only just managing not to break his neck. Luckily, sleeping next to Cas for a few months had given him good reflexes, and also gotten him used to waking up in some unusual ways at unusual times.

“Come on!” Cas huffed impatiently, practically vibrating with excitement.

“You’ve been spending too much time with Wolf,” Dean said grumpily. “You look just like he does when someone says the word ‘walk’ within a ten-mile radius.”

“WOOF!” came a fearsome bark from the next level down. Dean jumped.

 “Pretty sure that dog’s actually a hell-hound in disguise,” he grumbled.

“Dean!!” Cas exclaimed, exasperated, reaching out to tug at his hand again, “Come _on_!”

Dean finally woke up and looked, _properly_ looked, at his angel, at his radiant smile - a special one only Dean ever got to see - at his excited face, at the love shining from his eyes… and at the jumper with the big snowman on it? And was that a Santa hat with antlers attached?  And… a Rudolf nose…

Oh God. Christmas.

“Dean!” Cas rolled his eyes, and Dean knew he probably only had another two seconds before the still surprisingly strong ex-angel dragged him bodily out the door. “Hurry _up!_ ”

“Ok, ok! I’m on my way,” Dean yawned, then grinned, suddenly and unexpectedly infected by Cas’s obvious excitement. “Just let me put some pants on first!”

 

When he got to the top of the stairs Dean gasped, and felt his face slacken into an expression of dumbstruck awe. The entire main area of the bunker had been turned overnight into a Christmas wonderland. Fairy lights and tinsel hung from the balconies, roof and bookcases, and an enormous tree stood in the corner, carefully decorated, with, yes, a freaking _angel_ on the top. A mound of presents, some showing his brother’s careful wrapping technique, and others showing a much more…enthusiastic…approach were placed in a careful arrangement around the base of the tree. Eggnog, various Christmas-shaped cookies, bonbons, a huge vat of hot chocolate and sundry other Christmassy- type items were spread haphazardly across the main table.

But, most impressively, it was _snowing!_

“How…” Dean started, then stopped. That wasn’t important.

“Cas,” he breathed in wonder. “Did you do this?”

“Yes!” Cas beamed. “I asked Sam why we weren’t preparing for Christmas, like they do in the movies, and he told me it was because you didn’t have family to celebrate it with. And I thought well now... now you do?”

Cas ended his excited jumble of words on a querying note that tore at Dean’s heart. The scars from Castiel’s fall still ran deep, much deeper than the visible ones on his back.

“Yes,” Dean said, feeling sudden and unexpected tears sting behind his eyes. “Yes, Cas. Now we do.”

 

**Later:**

“Thanks, Sam, for putting Cas’s presents out.”

“You bought them. You just forgot when to give them. As usual.”

“Well, Christmas hasn’t traditionally been a time of year I want to remember.”

“Maybe Cas is right, and that will change now,” Sam said thoughtfully, watching Cas pour maybe just a bit too much eggnog into a glass. Sam winced, he’d tasted it, and it was a bit more ‘nog’ than ‘egg’. Then he shrugged internally. If Cas had a hangover, well, that was just another part of the Christmas tradition.

“For sure,” Dean grinned. “Did you find the present I got you?”

“I did. Thanks, it’s just what I needed.  I also… I also found something else. Sorry. I was going through your drawers and… well.”

Dean’s fingers tightened a bit on his mug, a motion so small that only Sam, who knew his brother so well, would notice.

“What did you think?” Dean asked, a bit too casually.

Sam wasn’t fooled. “It’s perfect, Dean. Really.”

His brother relaxed fractionally, still watching Cas, who was now trying to juggle a mug of hot chocolate as well as a glass of eggnog _and_ a pile of cookies.

“When?” Sam asked softly, making sure Cas was still busy and out of earshot.

“Not sure,” Dean shrugged, as the former angel inevitably dropped a cookie and then tried frantically to reach it before Wolf did.

“That’s mine!” Cas scolded. “Sam made you special bone-shaped ones. Go eat those!”

The brothers grinned.

“When the time is right,” Dean continued with a tender smile, and expression Sam had only seen since Cas had come to live with them. “Soon, I think.”

They stood there in silence for a moment longer, just enjoying the feeling of a real, proper Christmas. A Christmas neither of them ever thought they’d live to see.

“The snow?” Dean asked eventually.

“Don’t know. Don’t want to know.”

“Fair. Thanks for helping Cas set it up, by the way. I would’ve helped, but obviously he wanted it to be a surprise.”

“No, no,” Sam laughed. “I didn’t do anything. This was all Cas.”

“So why did you look so exhausted yesterday?” Dean asked with a side-long look and a raised eyebrow. “You looked like you’d been to Hell and back. Again.”

“Have you ever been shopping with Cas?”

“Obviously,” Dean snorted. Then, after another quick look around the room, “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Sam nodded, taking another long, long swig of the eggnog. “Exactly.”

Dean snorted again, then, after a brief struggle, started laughing so hard tears streamed helplessly down his face.

“Merry Christmas, little brother,” he gasped eventually.

 

Dean wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes and wandered over to stand under the mistletoe, where Cas quickly joined him, as if he’d been waiting for that very moment. And maybe he had.

“Did I do it?” Cas asked quietly.

“Do what?” Dean asked curiously, reaching out to run a hand tenderly down his lover’s cheek, the feeling of soft skin under his fingers a sensation he knew he’d never tire of. He was still constantly amazed that Cas, his beautiful, beloved angel, was here. With him.

“Save Christmas,” Cas replied, leaning into the touch with a contented sigh.

Dean smiled softly, and looked around the room that had been put together with so much love and care. Something he’d had so little of in his life.

 “Yes, angel. But, more importantly, I think you saved _me_.”

With that he finally leaned in for a kiss, a kiss that only a year ago had seemed as impossible as the snow that continued to fall in gentle flurries around them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed that little check-in with the boys to see how life’s going in the bunker. Can I just say again how MUCH I appreciate everyone’s enthusiasm and kind words for this story. You guys are the absolute best and I love you!


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